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Book „ 



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COFYKIGHT DEPOSrr. 



The American Spirit 



I'.Y 



Joseph Allen Minturn 
Captain of Engineers, U. S. Army, A. E. F. 



With Illustrations From Army Photographs and Drawings 
By the Author 



Globe Publishing Company 

iooi Law Building 

Indianapolis, Indiana 



a 






Copyright, 1921 
By Joseph Allen Minturn 



DEC 10 192! 

©CLA653041 



^° 



WHY I ENTERED THE ARMY 
CHAPTER I 

WHY I DID IT 

I have been asked why I left a comfortable home and a good 
business at the age of fifty-six, to accept a commission as second 
lieutenant, when the war broke out, while boys half my age were 
going as first lieutenants and captains ; and why, after being hon- 
orably discharged from an officers' training camp for over-age, 
I went to so much trouble to get back in again? "If papa had to 
go it would be different," one of my married daughters remarked 
somewhat disgustedly. The leading question in a popular army 
song is, "Why — she done it?" I haven't stopped before to con- 
sider my answer, but as I have in mind to put the whole story on 
paper before it fades from memory, let me begin far enough back 
to get a good running jump at the solution. Family tradition 
and ideals do much to influence those who happen to know about 
them — in fact, the influence of an ideal is the greatest human 
incentive : 

Descendants of the Puritans who first set foot on 

Plymouth Rock, 
The honor and chief burden yours that Doors of 
Freedom still unlock. 

For several years before the memorable summer of 191 4, I 
had interested myself, as a diversion, in working out the gene- 
alogv of our family. On mother's side we were Puritans, 
descended from John Howland and Elizabeth Tillie, who came 
over in the Mayflower in 1620. I had helped to organize an Indi- 
ana Mayflower Society, and as its historian read much about the 
trials and triumphs of that first New England colony whose great 
work has so influenced the highest ideals of the world : 

Thev gave us Liberty of Speech, and right to publish as we 

thought, 
Implanting rev'rence for a God, in worship as our conscience 

taugfht. 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Most favor'd this our Nation was, and we who in her precincts 

dwell, 
That Freedom sang her cradle-song and taught her lips a God to 

spell. 

The Howlands intermarried with the Gorhams and the 
Fullers, whose several generations fought in King Philip's and 
other colonial wars, and in the War of the Revolution. Soon 
after gaining independence many New Englanders migrated to 
newer parts of their great inheritance. Ours settled in the Ohio 
Purchase, near Athens, where the rifle was then as necessary as 
plow and axe. There my male progenitor, descended from the 
Minturns, of New York and New Jersey, was born and married 
my Puritan mother. Great-great-grandfather Minturn fought 
nearlv four years for American independence, and father and 
four uncles — two from each side of the family — were in the war 
to save the Union. I was born June 20, 1861. A few days after 
the stork came, father went to war as a lieutenant of infantry, 
and patriotism rocked the cradle. Such influences are supreme. 

Hohenzollern, senior, mad with despotism and the conceit that 
German "Kultur" — meaning the State with his house at the head. 
— was fittest, under Darwin's theory, to survive, had declared 
that "the day" was come for Germany to rule over all. When we 
entered the contest in 191 7, the Kaiser was making good the boast 
of the invincibility of his army. He had Europe by the throat and 
was more than menacing us. Does anybody doubt now that he 
would have won the war had we staid out of it, or that he would 
have recouped on us had he won? 

To me, the dominating question was whether the fight in 
Europe was ours or not. Answering in the affirmative, it fol- 
lowed, so far as I was concerned, that the obligation for military 
service was stronger against one who had lived most of his life's 
expectancy, and was still fit, than it was against a young man who 
had so much more of life to live and to lose. I felt fit, therefore 
it was my duty to go. And it was not a question of "let George do 
it." Some things can be passed on to George, but not all. He can 
shine your shoes and wash the auto, but he can't do your court- 
ing or defend your personal honor. I feel sorry for the strong, 
husky fellows who staid at home, and have to put so much time in 
explaining why ; they seem to have most trouble convincing them- 
selves. They tell you how they wanted in, but for some insur- 

2 



I DROP INTO POETRY 

mountable reason failed, just as I failed to get into the Spanish- 
American war. I tried in a way as the files of Governor Mount 
and Adjutant General McKee should show, — but not with any 
great determination, before the brief war was over. 

Prior to April, 191 7, many patriotic meetings were held 
denouncing our "watchful waiting" policy and lack of prepared- 
ness. One of these in Tomlinson Hall in the early part of 19 17. 
was addressed by Mr. Harlan, of Chicago, who aroused much 
enthusiasm. I sat so quietly that my wife, who was standing on 
her chair like the rest of the applauding audience, thought I was 
indifferent. 

My emotions are expressed differently. Like one of Dickens' 
characters, when I feel deeply I can "drop into poetry," and the 
fact that I wrote six on the subject of patriotism indicates how 
very deeply I was moved. The lines on pages 1 and 2 of this 
story are from one of over two hundred lines in length ! I will 
give another here and spare the reader from the other four : 

Patriotism. 

Up and down our country broad 
With a menace that has awed — 

Comes across the water, 
Breaking like a thunder crash 
From a sky without a flash 

Groans and shrieks of slaughter. 

Women weep and men turn pale, \ ^ 

And their speech and courage fail — \ 

None these cowards chiding, 
When, instead of bold array. 
On their knees for peace they pray — 
Preparedness in hiding. 

Are our patriots of yore 
Without issue — gone before — 

Gathered to the fathers? 
Or, is patriot a name 
For unselfishness — the same 

As sacrifice for others? 

Patriotic sentiment 

Is by Nature rarely lent 

As a birthright due us : 
But it comes by growth of mind 
Like religion and its kind 

Educated through us. 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 




WOMEN WEEP AND MEN TURN PALE, 

AND THEIR SPEECH AND COURAGE FAIL- 
NONE THESE COWARDS CHIDING, 
WHEN, INSTEAD OF BOLD ARRAY, 
ON THEIR KNEES FOR PEACE THEY PRAY — 
PREPAREDNESS IN HIDING. 



I RECEIVE LITTLE ENCOURAGEMENT 

Let not then our teaching lag" — 
Love of neighbor, country, flag, 

From the cradle drill us 
Till each breeze that blows shall bring 
That triumphant Freedom's ring 

Which shall ever thrill us. 

My mind was made up to go into the service if I possibly 
could. When I told my wife she laughed at the idea, and 
either thought I was joking or too old. I immediately got in 
communication with the Chief of Engineers, and other heads of 
the War Department at Washington, and under instructions filled 
out and filed numerous applications for a commission in the army, 
none of which I ever heard from afterward. I had several inter- 
views with Harry B. Smith, adjutant general of Indiana, whom I 
knew well, and on his advice filed a similar application for a com- 
mission in the Indiana Guard which I never heard from, and as 
a last resort I called on Governor Goodrich and asked him to use 
his influence. But he said, "Joe, you and I are too old to go to 
war. Let the young men do the fighting. Don't you know the 
Civil war was fought and won by boys under twenty-one?"' 

The daily press began to advertise the first Officers' Training 
Camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison, near Indianapolis, and told 
where blank applications for admission could be had. These when 
filled out and sworn to were to be mailed to General Barry, com- 
manding the Central Department of the army at Chicago. I 
obtained one and took great pains to print all the require 1 data 
neatly by hand, laying stress on the fact that I was a graduate of 
the Pennsylvania Military College with the degree of Civil 
Engineer. Some clerk at Chicago must have overlooked the 
sworn date of my birth — June 20, 1861 — for I very promptly 
received acknowledgment in the form of a card ordering me to 
report at once to the officer in charge of the U. S. recruiting 
station at Indianapolis for physical examination. 

This came as a surprise, after so many disappointments, and it 
was with much nervousness that I hastened to obey. A sergeant 
was the ranking officer then present at the recruiting place on 
South Illinois street near the corner of Kentucky avenue. The 
climb of a high pair of stairs to reach it made the heart-flutter 
still greater. I was told that Captain Coppock was out in the 
State on some examinations for the dav, but had left orders for 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 




all Indianapolis applicants to meet him at his office promptly at 
9 o'clock that night. 

I had to tell my business 
partner that afternoon what 
I had done, and also my wife 
at dinner time, but they did 
not seem much worried, be- 
cause I would not pass the 
physical tests, in their esti- 
/ mation. 

At 9 p. m. a dozen fine 
F young fellows, none of them 
these young MEN— mud] over twenty-one, filed 

into Captain Coppock's private office and stood at attention. 
Among these, as I remember, were the two sons of Hilton U. 
Brown, Robert Stephenson, and Thomas A. Hendricks. I pur- 
posely took a place in the rear rank. The captain ran his eye 
over us as a drover would who was about to buy a bunch of 
steers, and addressing me, asked : 

"Are you interested in one of these young men?'' 
"No sir," 1 replied, "I am here in my own behalf as a pros- 
pective candidate to the training camp." 

"You are over-age, aren't yon?" he offered more as a state- 
ment of fact than as a question. 

"1 hope not, sir. Here is my order from General Rarry to 
report to you," and I handed him my card. He told the orderly 
to firing him the rest of the papers in my case and after inspec- 
tion said 

"Well, it's not for me to stand in the way of any man's ambi- 
tion. All of you go to the room across the hall and take your 
clothes off," and turning to me, "You, too!" he said. 

We obeyed literally and like the best things at a banquet, he 
saved me for the last. I stood around for an hour naked while 
he put the young fellows through all the tests of their anatomy ; 
then he gave me the most rigid examination, and said I was 
sound and all right, but over-age, — which last fact was admitted 
and sworn to in my application. To avoid any future charge of 
dereliction on his part, he proceeded to emphasize my over-age 
by writing the words in red ink across the face of my papers. 
Naturally, I did not feel elated. Our applications had a perfo- 

6 



QUICK CHANGE FROM A CIVILIAN 

rated part to be filled out by the examiner and to serve as 
credentials for admission to the camp when torn off and returned. 
We were told we would receive these by mail in a day or two if 
we passed. I did not receive mine but continued to hope until 
the day the camp opened ; then I acknowledged another disap- 
pointment, and had begun to plan a new effort when I received 
a card postmarked, "Indianapolis, Ind., 2 130 p. m., May 11. 1917." 
and reading as follows : 

ORIGINAL 

Hq. Citizens' Training Camp, 

Ft. Benj. Harrison, Ind. 
You are authorized to report at this camp for the training 
authorized by the War Department. 

Upon receipt of this card start at once. 

Bring this card with you and present it to the camp adjutant 
upon arrh al. 

By order of Colonel Glenn : 

John S. Upham, 
Capt. 3d. Infantry. 

Adjutant. 

Colonel Glenn had arrived at Fort Harrison several days 
before the opening of the training camp, and I called on him to 
personally urge my acceptance while my hopes were ebbing. He 
referred me to Major Ely, a fine officer who was ordered to 
France while the first camp was in training, and was there pro- 
moted and won distinction at the front. I had been admitted to 
the camp and had trained for a week before a letter from Colonel 
Glenn reached my office down-town, regretting his inability to 
admit me except in the regular way, and recommending that I 
apply to the War Department for a commission. 

I received my precious card postmarked ''2:30 p. m.. May n," 
in the first mail deliverv after dinner. I grabbed my hat and 
rushed for a car, and within an hour was part of a long line wait- 
ing at the adjutant's office at the fort to be registered. The rest 
was mere detail. Before another hour I had signed up, was 
sworn in, and was the property of Uncle Sam for the duration of 
the war ! Then I began a part realization of the great and sud- 
den change. I wanted to return to tell my folks what had become 
of me, and to arrange my affairs, but was told I could not without 
a pass from the camp adjutant, and not then, except in military 

7 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

uniform. Failure to find clothes at the quartermaster's large 
enough, saved me that day from wearing the uniform, and as I 
had to apply for a pass "through channels" — that is, through my 
company commander, I came near not getting 'it at all in the 
rush, and it was late when it reached me. When my wife learned 
what I had done she nearly fainted. But after the first shock she 
was game and never whimpered. For more than two years of 
anxiety and suspense, during which she buried her brother and 
my sister, who died of the "flu" and several of our children and 
grandchildren nearly died of it, she stuck to her post, most of the 
time alone, so as to look after things, as our children are scat- 
tered and married. The women at home who lacked the novelty 
of travel and excitement of events to break the monotony ; who 
had all the uncertainties and suspense of war with its calamities to 
dread, and bore all, keeping back their own bad news and cheer- 
ing us the while with letters of love and hope and courage — they 
are the ones to whom the medals for bravery belong, and of these 
my wife is among the bravest. 

Note. The frontispiece and illustration on page four are from drawings made 
a few weeks before I entered the Officers' Training Camp at Fort Harrison, and 
show the trend of my mind at that time. 



STRENUOUS LIFE AT FT. HARRISON 



CHAPTER II 



LIFE IN AN OFFICERS TRAINING CAMP 

Every one of the two thousand and more men, admitted to the 
training camp at Fort Harrison knew he had been selected over 
three or four other applicants for no substantial reason, and that 
every one of those others was eager to take his place. The lucky 
ones were constantly reminded of this situation, and were on edge 
to make good. In a course of three months they were expected 
to absorb the four years of military instruction given at West 
Point ! As I look back now I am amazed at how near we did it ; 
of the amount of ground covered, and the correctness, and thor- 
oughness of the instruction. 
Of course, many details de- 
veloped at the front by the 
new conditions of warfare 
had to be learned afterwards, 
but the principles of maneu- 
ver, of musketry, of target 
designation, control of fire, 
and use of the rifle, so essen- 
tial to success in war, were 
correct. More than once in 
the great army training camps of the United States and in France, 
when some important newly-issued bulletin was handed us, or 
we were detailed for a post-graduate course to a specialist school, 
we were surprised to find how little new there was over that 
which we had gone over at Harrison. 

I say "gone over" advisedly, for our rate of travel was too fast 
for an exhaustive study ; but it came back to help, just as an early 
study in school of the French language was a great help in the 
rapid acquirement of a working knowledge of that language 
when our boys landed in France. 

To us candidates the training camp seemed more of an elimi- 
nation race than a place of learning. How much humiliating 

Q 




TRAINING FOR AN ARMY OFFICER 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

work, such as sweeping and mopping the floors, cleaning of cuspi- 
dors, "policing" of grounds which means picking up cigar butts, 
cigarette fragments, fruit pits and banana skins, matches, sticks 
and paper, — in fact everything visible to the naked eye not 
fastened to the ground outside the barracks ; how much hiking 
and double-timing and lighting express instruction we would 
stand for or could endure from reveille at 5 145 a. m. to taps at 
10 p. m. We were stunned with the vastness and variety of the 
science of war. Infantry drill regulations, previously supposed 
by us to contain all of the essentials, was found to be only a primer 
on the rudiments. To read Shakespeare, a knowledge of the al- 
phabet is important in about the same way that one must know 
his I. D. R. to practice military science. 

The first officers' training camps were largely experimental, 
from the nature of things ; but the good work done, with so little 
lost motion and waste of time, bespeaks an intelligent supervision 
and loyal co-operation which signalized the work of the army 
throughout the war. 

I shall not attempt a diarv of this period, but a glimpse may 
not be over-tedious: Our first trouble was in getting blankets 
and equipment and clothes to fit. Eor the first night in camp 
newspapers were my mattress and I found a blanket on top did 
not keep out the cold from below. For many days, without pre- 
vious acquaintance, we swopped hats and blouses with each other. 
and in my own case I traded breeches twice with men I met on 
the sidewalk — going inside, of course, to make the transfer — 
before I got a pair small enough around the waist and long enough 
in the legs. But so far as my observation went, nobody traded 
socks or shoes. Much care was paid here, and always in the 
army, to the comfort of the feet; not so much from humanitarian 
motives as because an army cannot march with bad feet: and 
unless it can march long and far as well as often, it is a poor army. 
Socks with wrinkles or holes, though they be darned holes, are 
apt to cause uneven pressure and raise a blister. We were taught 
to change often, and to throw the socks away when worn through. 
My wife wondered why I had sixteen pairs of good socks when I 
came out of the service. Many a soldier who raised corns and 
bunions all his civil life has quit for good. He has learned to 
wear an ample shoe since his sergeant made him shoulder a heavy 

10 



GETTING UNIFORMED 




SWOPPING CLOTHES AT F 



■SAJ1 

RT HARRISON 



sack of sand to settle him down in the toes when he tried on his 
first army pair. 

At first I was in C company at Hanson, Captain Fickle, 
commanding. He was one of the most likeable men I have served 
under; a strict disciplinarian, but capable, and ready to explain 
why, and as a result, meeting with willing obedience. It was a 
source of never-ending re- 
gret to a number of us who 
were transferred out of his 
company, and when mat- 
ters commenced to go 
wrong we got such conso- 
lation as we could by tell- 
ing each other how differ- 
ent it would have been "if 
we'd only staid in C." 

On my first Sunday in camp there was an order to C company 
for a squad of its largest men to report for special duty at B 
barracks. I was on the detail and we were looking for some 
marked honor. We found it in the hard and conspicuous labor of 
unloading heavy crates of quartermaster supplies from trucks, 
and carrying them to the barracks across a front sidewalk, 
crowded with Indianapolis sight-seers. We overheard one pretty 
girl ask her companion what she supposed those prisoners, mean- 
ing us, had been guilty of, and more than one of my Indianapolis 
acquaintances stared in a bewildered way at me. They couldn't 
believe their eyes. I was getting early action on my patriotism. 
Morris Levi, city editor of an Evansville daily, and a young 
newspaper man from Greensburg, were on the same detail with 
me, and we all worked like — I was going to say deck-hands, but I 
think candidates for office would be stronger and more appropri- 
ate. In the middle of the afternoon, when we were so tired our 
feet were dragging, Durham, a candidate like ourselves, but with 
previous experience which put him in command, and we thought 
he was a "regular" asked me how I happened to be there. Evi- 
dently he supposed I was too old, and I made up my mind that 
my gray mustache must come off without delay. I related my 
story briefly ; and in the hearing of the rest of the detail he said : 

"You've worked enough today — you can go." 

I thanked him for the crowd and told the bovs to follow me, 
II 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

that we'd been relieved. We all started off when Dm ham halted 
the rest with, "No! no! not you fellows — just dad here!" "Dad" 
was mean enough to desert his comrades in this first episode of 
the great war. 

I remember the above incident because it is the only time I 
recall any consideration being paid to me on account of age, and 
also from the fact that the nickname of "Dad" stuck to me at 
Harrison and followed me to France and back. 

Several men with long State Guard and other military experi- 
ence came ready-commissioned to the camp as assistant instruc- 
tors and candidates for promotion. A few days after the above 
Sunday incident the top sergeant — always an important man, 
detailed me to take a pushcart and transfer the personal baggage 
of a young one of those officers to C barracks orderly room 
where he was to sleep. This second lieuey showed me where to get 
his trunk and bed-roll, and followed at a discreet distance to indi- 
cate where to put them, but did not condescend to lend a hand. 
He looked as sheepish as I felt later in Paris, where I followed 
a woman who wheeled my baggage on a hand-truck from the 
station to a taxi. 

We were required to march with full packs — fifty minutes' 
hike and ten minutes' rest per hour according to the army rule, 
and to do all manner of hard and menial work that we might 
know from experience how to sympathize as officers later on 
with the common soldiers under us. The great difference was 
that we took our training seriously and did not "soldier" on the 
job as the real soldiers do. 

As soon as practicable the men who had expressed a preference 
for a particular line of service, as aviation, light or heavy artillery, 
coast defense, machine gunnery, engineers, cavalry and the like, 
were segregated, questioned a little, and sent to special organiza- 
tions or other camps. I thought I preferred the engineers and 
responded to an invitation to meet Colonel Huffman at head- 
quarters at 7 o'clock one night. When I reached the place there 
was a line a city block long waiting to get in, and after standing 
my turn I allowed myself to be bluffed out of the idea by the 
colonel's suggestion that I could not pass a rigid engineering 
examination. I had graduated at college thirty-five years before 
in civil engineering and chemistry, but had been practicing patent 
law most of the time since. I seemed to be setting; alone: all right 



RIGID PHYSICAL EXAMINATION 

where I was in C and the fear of losing out by some turn of 
fortune made me decide to let well enough alone. I learned after- 
ward that there was no special examination and the sequel shows 
that I was best fitted for service with the engineers. I was soon 
to be transferred out of C company and later discharged for over- 
age ; but the future is not known to us. 

May and June of 191 7 were unusually cold and wet. About 
every other hour of the day we had lectures and recitations on 
our military studies, called "conferences," which were held out- 
side unless it was actually raining at the time. The class sat on 
the ground in a circle around the instructor and as the ground 
was invariably wet and cold I early contracted a disorder resulting 
in abscesses in the ears. Afraid to go to the hospital lest any com- 
plaint would direct attention to me and perhaps be used against 
me on account of my years, I bore the excruciating ear-aches 
until one night I thought I would have to give up. I lay with 
the left ear, which was the worse, on my canteen filled with hot 
water when the abscess broke and gave me relief ; then I took 
treatments every time I got town-leave, from Dr. Barnhill, and at 
his suggestion carried a rubber cloth to sit on. Dr. Paul Coble, 
his associate, gave me a few treatments ; then entered the army, 
and was stationed at Fort Harrison in time to examine my ears 
when the great physical round-up occurred there. That was the 
middle of June, and a general weeding-out of defective candi- 
dates resulted. The examinations occurred in one of the brick 
barracks below the canteen. Our company was lined up alpha- 
betically on the front sidewalk, entered the stoop by the north 
steps, advanced and climbed a middle dividing rail by twos. Then 
each pair was halted twenty feet from a wall at right angles, on 
which a chart with words in rows of downwardly diminishing 
sizes was posted. 

The doctor who halted me immediately asked my age. I was 
getting tired of the question and replied that I would rather not 
tell. "But you'll have to, won't you?" "All right then," I re- 
plied, "I'm fifty-six." "Well, that's no disgrace, is it? I'm fifty- 
four." He wrote "20 — 20" eye-test on my examination card. 

adding "You've remarkable sight for a man of your age !" 

That was encouraging. "Inside, first door to the left — strip to the 
waist," was the next order. There a specialist plugged in at all 
points of our lungs with a long distance telephone and listened 

13 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 




for trouble ; made us expand, cough and say "ough," lean for- 
ward, backward and sideways ; took our lung-dimensions before 
and after inflation, and thumped us like wise ones sound a water- 
melon. After that, a heart specialist listened to see if we had 
leaky valves, tried us for hardened arteries and pumped up an 
apparatus on our arms with a dial attachment for recording 
blood pressure. Next, we were directed across the hall to a room 
where we took off the rest of our raiment. We were inspected 
for surface blemishes and a dentist saw if we had the war-require- 
ment of sound teeth. We were stood on our toes, and our hands 

and toes, and were made to stoop, 
to spraddle, to kneel, to hop and 
to twist until stiff joints, rup- 
tures and flat feet were all sure 
to be exposed. Dr. (Major) Co- 
ble on throat and nose was next, 
and after that came the test for 
hearing, about which I was most 
solicitous ; but my ears were so 
nearly well that I passed the 
••how old are you?" tests w jthout any trouble. Still 

naked, we submitted our full examination cards to a medical of- 
ficer in charge. "How old are you?" he insisted. Then he said 
my card was "fair for a boy," joked me on my age and volunteered 
the assurance that he would not order me before the Camp Board 
if I wanted to remain in the service. That made me feel much 
easier, as it removed a haunting fear of discharge for disability, 
which hovered over everybody until they had passed the ordeal, 
and was greater in my case for obvious reasons. 

About when we were getting organized and well enough 
acquainted with each other's failings to use them effectively in 
taking the conceit out of one another, the commandant ordered a 
separation on geographical lines. Ohio men were removed to the 
new East barracks, and those from Kentucky and West Virginia 
were segregated into barracks of their own. Those remaining in 
the old brick barracks were Indianians, and transfers were made 
to fill up the gaps in their ranks. Some fifty or more of us — 
the A to M's — were transferred to A company, where we found 
its old members so well organized and entrenched against invad- 

H 



SOME SOLDIERS AT FT. HARRISON 

ers that we never quite got on terms of equality with candidates 
or instructors. 

Lieutenant Lockwood, born in the army and educated at West 
Point, was the commander. He was very tall, very, very slender, 
and as conscientious and narrow as his physique. He read a lec- 
ture once to the assembled candidates of the camp on the supe- 
riority of military over civil law and justice that caused me many 
disappointments since, trying to find those Utopian army condi- 
tions in practice. The developments of the World war will 
necessitate a reversal of opinion on the part of that lecturer. It 
was not known that Lieutenant Lockwood could smile. He kept 
his milk of human kindness hermetically sealed, but a remark 
he dropped when the board handed down a decision against me, 
and a nice letter that he gave when I was discharged while in his 
company, make me believe that he has loveable qualities only 
needing to be uncovered. He was letter-perfect in his I. D. R., 
and a believer in German "iron rigid discipline." 

Major Kennedy, late from civil life, was the first assistant 
instructor. He often got excited, which made him stutter. He 
was always easily approached and because he did not have that 
West Point pedestal to stand on, was the more popular. Lieuten- 
ant Miller, second assistant, was chiefly remembered as agent for 
the Infantry Journal, the circulation of which he ever had at 
heart, and as the chief disturber of our slumbers at the evening 
study-hour when we had to lie on our bunks for lack of chairs, 
and were too "dog-tired" after each perfect day to keep our eyes 
open, How memory goes back to those days when a comrade 
would swat you with a pillow and tell you to "wake up, the study 
hour is over !" 

Butler, with the red hair of a born fighter, and frame of a 
Hercules, Levi, with the refined mind and blinking eyes, and I, 
were quartered together at A. In the same room was my first 
good friend, Durham ; Cadeau, a jovial French boy, on whom we 
relied to lead the singing which lightened our hikes ; "Dusty" 
Rhodes, a chiropractor in civil life, who always came off best in 
repartee and burned with an ambition to be captain of a truck- 
company in France ; Davis, of Evansville, with fine ability as a 
drill-master, and the figure of an Apollo, except that he juked 
his head in spite of constant reminders by his many frank and 
always out-spoken friends. He was under-age, and destined to 

15 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



be tried for that offense when I was tried for the opposite. Then 
there was "Doc" Howe, a graduate of Plattsburg, who prided 
himself on the completeness of his equipment, including medicines 
which he prescribed so freely that he got the above nickname 
He had books on every military subject, and was so crazy over 
machine-guns that he fired on the enemy in his sleep, kept us 
awake with the horrors of his nightmares, and then disturbed our 
morning naps by rising an hour before reveille that he might 
not be rushed in dressing for roll-call ! I could almost touch Bob 
Kennington from my bed. He who was sent out one day in our 
training maneuvres with a flag to mark the position of the enemy 
upon whom the rest of us were to advance without him seeing us. 

He was to waive his 
flag when he did see 
us, but got mad be- 
cause a detail slipped 
t» around behind and 
J captured him. He 
?i was a fine fellow, a 
good soldier, and the 
life of the barracks. 
A feature of the camp 
were addresses by prominent men — Taft, Bryan, Watson, New, 
the State governors and others, and so many of the orators ad- 
dressed the candidates as "My young heroes, etc.," that the 
phrase became a by-word. Bob was fond of "sounding off" 
with it, and as the fellows laughed then they little realized that 
he was to be among the first to die for his country. He was 
killed in action at Chauteau-Thierry. Our bunks were so 
crowded that we had to get in from the end. Morris Levi 
touched me on the right. He often declared he did not expect 
to come out of the war alive, and was one of nine selected from 
each company at the end of the first camp, to go at once to 
Erance. My, how excited he was when the order was pub- 
lished. His thoughts were for his mother and folks at 
home. I heard he was wounded at the front, and while 
I have constantly inquired, have learned none of the par- 
ticulars, nor whether his premonition came true.* Jameson, of 
Irvington, rubbed bl?nkets with me on the left. He aspired to 




'MY YOUNG HEROES! 



; Fate fooled him bv bringing him back alive and well. 

16 



THE SOLDIER EARLY ENCOURAGED TO SING 

literature and was ever practicing by writing long letters to 
friends which profited the rest of us in that he received many 
boxes from them filled with delicious cake, fruit and other good 
things, which the generous "Jamie" lavishly ''put out" to his 
comrades. Gunn, a veteran of the Spanish-American war, with 
fifteen battles credited to him on his discharge, was the boon 
companion and closest rival in marksmanship of John Leggett, of 
Winchester. Leggett was a born forager, and won my lasting 
admiration and gratitude by introducing me to a can of cold but- 
termilk that first Sunday when I got back from rustling quarter- 
master crates. DeBruiler was the comedian of the company, and 
spared none, from commandant clown, in his impersonations. He 
was among the nine who went at once to France, as also were 
Cadeau, Pirtle Hereod, Jr., and Menzies. The latter was reported 
killed in action, but I have not been able to verify it. Bob Shidler 
and Reed were the handsomest "big men" in our company, and 
Blake only lacked a few years of being in my class — the oldest. 
But space will not permit even the names here of the hundreds of 
splendid comrades — picked men, indeed — of that first officers' 
training camp. 

Ohio was numerically stronger in the camp than Indiana, and 
a friendly rivalry developed after the separation by States. This 
manifested itself in various ways, but most frequently when the 
candidates were all brought together to listen to some noted 
speaker or to a lecture of general military interest. 

Singing was encouraged and was made a feature at these 
meetings. Each State had its own song. "Indiana" is high-grade, 
but more difficult to sing than the others. "Ohio" is light and 
easy, enabling the candidates from that State to get under way 
quickly and keep a-going : 

Ohio ! Ohio ! we'll make the Germans fly, 
We're bound to do or die ! 

Ohio ! Ohio ! we'll win the war or know the reason why. 
And when we win the war, 
We'll buy a keg of booze, 
And we'll drink to old Ohio 
Till we wobble in our shoes ! 

Ohio ! Ohio ! we'll win the war or know the reason why ! 
When they would run down, Indiana essayed to follow : 

17 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



Back home again, in Indiana, 

And it seems that I can see 

The gleaming candle light still shining bright 

Through the sycamores for me ; 

The new mown hay sends all its fragrance 

From the fields I used to roam 

When I dream about the moonlight on the Wabash, 

Then I long for my Indiana home. 

But before her men got the swing of the music some enthu- 
siastic Buckeyes would start "West Virginia.'' I can't recall the 
words, but the chorus expressed love for her "wooded hills, her 
rocks and running rills," and was altogether more dignified than 

Ohio's son?. West 



Virginia and Ohio 
seemed to have a good 
working agreement mu- 
sically, and together 
these eastern compatri- 
ots of ours would try 
to sing us down. Then 
supreme discord would 
reign until the soothing 
strains of "My Old Ken- 
tucky Home" were sent 
into the fray like a flag of truce, and we were all reminded that 
we were not yet fighting the Huns on the fields of France. 
After "My Old Kentucky Home," everybody rose to the occasion 
and sang "Indiana" and if there was yet time to spare, sang the 
Fort Harrison battle hymn, "Here's to Uncle Sammy, Faithful 
and True," and "Long Boy," or some of the many new war 
songs. We had rival athletics on the Fourth of July at the State 
Fair Grounds which ended with a tug-of-war by picked teams — 
green in my memory because I was awaiting decision by the 
board on a charge of being too old for the army, and was picked 
by my comrades as one out of 2.200 to pull on this team, and did 
pull on it! 




PULL ON A TUG-OF-WAR TEAM. — THE MAN 
OVER THE HOLE 



COURT MARTIALED FOR OVER-AGE 



CHAPTER III 

MY FIRST HONORABLE DISCHARGE 

A young man by the name of Armstrong was a member of 
A company. He was fresh from Culver Military Academy, and 
showed special aptitude at Harrison, but as he would lack a few 
weeks of being twenty-one when the camp was scheduled to close, 
August 15, he grew nervous as the time approached and finally 
took the matter up with Lieutenant Lockwood. The latter said 
the question would have to be answered by the Camp Board, com- 
prising Colonel (now General) Glenn and Majors Bell and 
Darrah. Lockwood asked if there were any others in A company 
who would not be eligible for commission when the camp closed, 
and Armstrong gave him Davis as one who would be under the 
minimum of twenty-one, and Minturn, who would be over the 
maximum of forty-four. 

The above I learned afterward, but when handed sealed orders 
one day in the last week of June for the three of us to report to 
the commanding officer at the hospital, this history was unknown. 
We delivered our orders and were told to report back in the 
morning. I was uneasy when the commanding officer there next 
day pushed some papers toward me with a request that I sign 
where he indicated. He noticed my hesitation, and in explanation 
I remarked, "If you belong to the order of Knights of Pythias 
you'll appreciate my reluctance to sign papers I know nothing 
about." "O, that's it — well, read them over first if you want to," 
he offered. "May I ask what it all means?" I questioned. "I 
don't know further than that I am required to report on your 
present physical condition, and you are to take my report with the 
papers you brought here, to the camp adjutant." "I was given 
to understand that I passed the rigid physical examination you 
doctors gave all candidates of the camp recently — what's the mat- 
ter now ?" I asked. "Don't know," he declared, "you can see I'm 
reporting you O. K." 

19 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

After the camp adjutant had looked the papers over he in- 
quired, "Well, what are the charges?" 

"Charges for what? I'm simply acting as messenger-boy or 
courier, sir," I answered. 

"These papers," he explained, "ask for an order for candidate 
Joseph A. Minturn to appear before the board, but do not state 
why. Take them back to Lieutenant Lock wood, and tell him to 
insert the charges — then return them -to me." 

The lieutenant entered the charge, "Over the maximum age 
limit," and when I returned them to the adjutant, the latter in- 
formed me that I would be sent for when the board was ready to 
try my case. That unlucky moment occurred on the morning of 
July 4. Court was convened in one of the temporary wooden 
buildings in the Ohio camp. The stern figures of its personnel 
were grouped back of a plain kitchen table and the accused, after 
saluting at attention, was told to sit on a box in front. 

"The charge was read and question put if it were true ?" 

"Yes sir," was the answer, "I was fifty-six years old the 
twentieth of last month." 

"What previous military training have you had?" This was 
answered as to the military school. 

"Were you in the Spanish-American war?" 

"No sir/' 

"State Guard ?'* 

"No sir." 

"What was your business in civil life?" 

"Patent lawyer, sir." 

"Are you an athlete ?" 

"I make no special claim, sir." 

"Play football, baseball, golf or practice athletics of any kind?" 

"Perhaps not in the sense you mean. I walk a great deal and 
prefer to spend my spare time with a pencil and brush sketching 
than with a ball bat." 

"Have you anything to say in this case in your own behalf?" 

"Yes sir, if I may be allowed to speak freely." 

"This is your opportunity." 

The accused arose and said : 

"As the board has kindly permitted me to speak without re- 
serve, I will say that this charge comes as a surprise and a very 
disagreeable one too at this time. It might even be inferred from 

20 



I PLEAD MY OWN CASE 



the limited proceedings so far that I was initially admitted to this 
camp on a false representation of my age. But that, sirs, is not 
true. You have the original application for admission before you, 
on which the date of my birth — June 20, 1861 — is written and 
sworn to, and across the face of this paper in bold letters in red 
ink is a warning of over-age written there by Captain Coppock, 
the recruiting officer who first examined me. 

"You gentlemen are the agents of the Government, sworn to 
do impartial justice. The accused does not deny the right of the 
Government to have excluded him from this training camp in the 
beginning, or to have promptly discharged him when this record 
was immediately added to by numerous qualification cards which 
have invariably stated his correct age ; then, too, his gray hairs 
and over-size have made it impossible for him to hide, and he has 
been conscious more than once, in the past sixty days, of inspec- 
tion by the members of this board. 

"As to his physical fitness the accused successfully passed the 
rigid examination given to all of the candidates a fortnight or so 
ago, and has since been de- 



clared sound and well by the 
medical staff of this camp 
with special reference to the 
charge to which I am now 
speaking. The accused be- 
lieves himself to be perfectly 
well and sound. He has not 
missed a single formation or 
tour of duty at Fort Harri- 
son, including trench digging, 

long marches with heavy packs, and police and guard duty in- 
cluding the gathering of trash and cigar-butts around the bar- 
racks-grounds, scrubbing the floors, washing the spittoons and 
guarding the latrine ! The records of this camp will show that 
there are hundreds of younger men who have not been able to 
stand the grill, but against whom no charges have been, nor, I 
venture to say, will be preferred, for physical disability. The 
mentality of the accused needs no further argument than I am 
now making, and the board will recognize that no hard and fast 
age limit can fairly measure all people either physically or 
mentally. 

21 




COURT MARTIALED FOR BEING 
OVER-AGE 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

"As to the law in the case by which this board may feel bound, 
it is the spirit of all of our courts more and more to do justice 
and equity and not to be bound to the strict letter of the law. It 
is not equitable and right to subject any man to the rigid, and I 
will say, humiliating requirements of this camp for two months, 
to the great disarrangement of private affairs in this case, and on 
the promise of a commission if the candidate proves mentally and 
physically fit, and then discharge him near the end of the train- 
ing period for the sole reason that he was over a forty-four 
year maximum — a temporary limit which we all expect will soon 
be raised. 

"In civil life there is such a thing as an estoppel — where those 
lose their right who fail to assert it at the proper time and allow 
others innocently to gain a standing. In this case the equitable 
principle of estoppel should be applied, for only a technicality 
stands in the way of doing justice, and, in all modesty let me add, 
of giving to our country in this time of war a willing soldier who 
is physically and mentally fit and whose age and patriotism will 
be an example for the emulation of younger men." 

The speaker sat down. Silence prevailed for a full minute. 
Then the president came to and announced that the board would 
take the case under advisement. 

When Davis, who was with me, reported the session to the 
men of A company, they regarded the proceedings as unusual, 
and bets were even as to the decision of the board. Snider, the 
best drill-master among us, said I would be fired, basing his judg- 
ment on the experience of a friend, a former regular army officer 
who tried, he said, in every way to get back in the service, but was 
refused because he was over the maximum age limit. The boys 
wanted to know what I proposed to do if discharged, and this 
discussion with the fact that Armstrong was discharged a couple 
of days after the trial, made a like fate for me loom more certain, 
as also did the impossibility of reconciling myself to it. 

I met Captain Fickle and told him, with tears in my eyes, what 
I feared. We agreed it never would have happened if I'd staid 
in C company, and he voluntarily went to the members of the 
board. He told them how my example had heartened the young 
fellows of his company and made them ashamed to grumble and 
weaken, and that the army needed more and not less of such men. 
The Eighth (Ohio) training regiment had finished its rifle 

22 



THE WORST HAPPENED 

practice and the Ninth regiment, to which my company belonged, 
was practice-shooting, preliminary to firing the record, while the 
above proceedings of the board were on. Summer had come and 
it was extremely hot and uncomfortable, waiting our turns to 
fire on those treeless ranges. All of our morale had vaporized 
and blown away, but as we were behind on our schedule we were 
ordered out on Sunday, the eighth of July, to finish our prelimi- 
nary shooting, ready to begin our record work on Monday. My 
platoon had been waiting all morning for its turn and had just 
been ordered up to the firing-line when somebody sounded off 
for "Minturn." On going back I was told to report at once to 
the orderly room in barracks for my discharge. Then was when 
I heard Lieutenant Lockwood "cuss" and talk as if he were not 
pleased. I was somewhat surprised, and asked him why he 
brought charges in the first place if the decision was not what he 
wanted. His reply was that he thought it would be kinder to me 
to know the ruling of the board then than to be allowed to train a 
month longer and be discharged. That might be logic to a fellow 
who intended to give up, but from my viewpoint, so long as you 
are in there is a chance, but when you're out you're done for 
unless you can get back in, and I couldn't hope for more fortu- 
nate accidents to help me. He consolingly said the war was 
young and my services might be needed yet, and in anticipation 
he gave me the following recommendation : 

"i. Mr. Joseph A. Minturn was a candidate in this training 
camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, from May n, 1917, 
to July 8, 191 7. While a member of this company I found him to 
be intelligent, quick to learn, enthusiastic and a willing worker. 
He was discharged for the reason that he was over the legal age 
for admission to this camp. I believe that he is worthy of a 
commission. He is most anxious to serve his country, and seems 
to be a vigorous and well-preserved man in spite of his age, He 
performed his full duty while under my observation. 

B. C. LOCKWOOD, TR , 
1 st. Lieutenant Infantry, D. O. L." 

I had some very cheap and sad-looking pictures in uniform 
taken at a souvenir tent on my way out of camp, and slept at 
home that Sunday night, but returned to the fort on Monday to 
draw my pay and discuss the situation with my warmest friends. 
Many candidates were being discharged at that time for incom- 

23 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

petency, and some for venereal troubles, and my chagrin was 
intensified by the thought that suspicion might be directed 
against me. 

On the advice of Captain Fickle I wrote, under date of July 
10, 1917, to Brigadier-General Barry, C. O. Central Department, 
Chicago, who was receiving applications for a second officers' 
training camp. I repeated in substance what I had told the board 
about my physical condition and faithful attention to duties, no 
matter how menial, for two-thirds of the training period, and 
asked reinstatement in the present camp or a waiver of the age- 
limit and admission to the second one. I enclosed a copy of 
Lieutenant Lockwood's letter and a formal application for admis- 
sion to the second camp. 

Chicago replied under date of July 20 : 

"1. The Department Commander directs me to inform you 
that your letter of application for registration has been received at 
these headquarters, but will be held temporarily because your 
case has been taken up with the adjutant general in Washington 
with a view to your reinstatement in the training camp, and final 
commission at the end, the same as other candidates, if you are 
found qualified. 

Y. M. MARKS, 
Captain U. S. A., Ret." 



24 



AN APPEAL TO CAESAR 



CHAPTER IV 



AN APPEAL TO CAESAR 



Several days before this came, however, I had been to Wash- 
ington and back. I drew my pay at Fort Harrison and used it 
in traveling toward the East by the first train with the purpose of 
placing the case personally before the President. 

The President of the United States, as commander-in-chief, I 
argued to myself, is the only person able and fearless enough to 
waive the technicality of my over-age ; his heart, like mine, is in 
the cause, and his own age will enable him to appreciate my earnest 
desire to serve my country. 

I arrived in Washington about 4 p. m. July 11, and went 
directly from the station to the senate office building where, al- 
though the Senate had adjourned for the day, I hoped to find one 
of our Indiana senators and enlist his services in reaching Mr. 
Wilson. Senator New was not in, but I located Mr. Watson, who 
gave me the famous Watsonian greeting, and in his genial whole- 
hearted way assured me the pleasure would be all his in going 
with me to see the adjutant general of the army — in fact he was 
so harrassed by constituents trying to evade service that it was a 
treat to work for a man who was trying so hard to get in — but he 
declared he was not close enough to the administration to reach 
Mr. Wilson. He engaged to accompany me to see the adjutant 
general at the office of whom we arrived early next morning, 
and I was delighted to find Senator New there on a war mission 
for another man. He kindly offered his influence and my case 
was ably presented by both senators to General McCain. But the 

25 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 




latter could offer no hope of re-instatement because of the "legal 
bar," which he said my over-age presented, and could only sug- 
gest in addition that I file a written application for a commission 
and see what the War Department would do with it. He rang for 
an orderly who brought a blank that I was told to fill and file 

immediately — strong empha- 
sis on the speed. I had it on 
i|jjjt; file in half an hour, and, as I 

expected, never heard from it 
again and suspect it was only 
intended as an easy way to 
get rid of me. The adjutant 
general and both senators as- 
sured me all had been done 
senators new and watson talk that could be, and as we de- 

TO ADJUTANT GENERAL McCAIN , j , ,, o AT 

in my behalf parted together Senator New 

frankly advised : "I wish you'd 
seen me before going out to Harrison, Joe. Your age is a legal 
bar, and you can't get back in the army — I've seen too many try 
it and fail — you've just wasted two months of your time. Sta- 
tistics show that young men make the best soldiers and that the 
Civil war was fought and won by men under twenty-one !" I re- 
spect Mr. New for being deucedly candid in this, as in other 
matters we have had between us in former years, though his 
frankness may not be altogether pleasing at the time. 

I thanked the two senators with sincerity, for they had gone 
out of their way in a case that must have appeared hopeless to 
them from the start, and I am sure now that their efforts helped 
toward ultimate success. But I still believed the president was 
bigger than that legal bar, and might help me if I could only 
reach him. Being politically of the Republican party I naturally 
turned first to my friends of that faith for suggestions ; but 
Merrill Moores, Will Wood and a host of congressmen on whom 
I called that day were "out" or impotent. Of my Democratic 
acquaintances the vice-president ranked highest, and knowing 
Mr. Marshall to be indeed democratic and human, as well as 
somewhat beyond the "legal limit" himself, I worked my way 
past the doorkeeper and into his private chambers at the Senate. 
Mark Thistlethwaite, his secretary, was in the much-mirrored and 
gilded room, which the vice-presidents successively claim as their 

26 



I SEE VICE-PRESIDENT MARSHALL 

own, waiting under the crystal pendants of the huge electrolier 
with a Washington Post, containing a quarter-page picture of 
Mrs. Marshall, with one of those little waifs on her lap that she 
is so fond of mothering. The vice-president would be in soon 
the secretary prophesied with truth. His wife's picture may have 
put Mr. Marshall in a good humor, or perhaps he is always that 
way — at any rate, he listened with apparent interest to the recital 
of all that had happened to me at Fort Harrison — then he asked : 
"What are you going to do about it, Minturn?" 

"I'm going to appeal personally to the president if I can get a 
hearing." 

"Why don't you see the adjutant general? He looks after 
army details." 

"I have just come from there. Senators New and Watson 
were both with me and urged that I be re-enlisted or commis- 
sioned forthwith and were told that my over-age was a legal bar. 
That's why I want to see the president — the man at the top." 

Mr. Marshall looked me in the eyes squarely as he said, "I'm 
going to risk your displeasure, Minturn, by telling you frankly I 
will not try to arrange a personal interview with Mr. Wilson. 
No doubt I could because of my position as vice-president, but 
that man is too busy and too much worried with matters of world 
importance. I think the army has treated you badly and will do 
anything I can personally to help you except that. 

"I've refused to interfere at all in army matters — turned 
down at least five hundred constituents — many my warmest 
friends and haven't even asked for the promotion of Gignilliat, 
whom I'm obliged to for bringing the Black Horse Troop of 
Culver to Washington twice to inauguration as my escort. 

"We'll meet that legal bar by a special act of Congress making 
you a lieutenant. Harry New and Merrill Moores and your other 
Republican friends, with my help, can put a bill through, and 
we'll do it if necessary. But you ought to see Baker first. Have 
you seen Baker?" 

"Do you mean the secretary of war?" I inquired. Mr. 
Marshall nodded in the affirmative and I continued. "No sir! I 
didn't think it any use as he'd most likely refer me to his adjutant 
general, whom I've seen." 

"Well, you see Baker — the secretary of war has some influ- 
27 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

ence in the army yet. I want you to see him," and he turned to 
the telephone at his hand to make an appointment. 

"Can't get him now — he's out," he presently advised, "but I'll 
get him later — you come back in an hour." 

Returning as directed I found the vice-president pacing the 
floor and holding a note of introduction, which he placed in my 
hands, saying : 

"You see Baker at 10 o'clock sharp tomorrow at his office in 
the Army and Navy Building, and I'll see him in the meantime, 
too." 

The hotels and down-town streets of Washington that July 
afternoon were thick with army officers from the grade of cap- 
tain up, whose unbuttoned uniforms and civilian ways told the 
military world that they were novices. Lieutenants did not seem 
to have business bringing them to Washington at all. I called 
at the Geological Survey on my old Pennsylvania Military Col- 
lege schoolmate, Frank Sutton, and found him at his desk, awk- 
ward and mad with trying to break in a new officer's uniform, 
which was trimmed with a castle and the gold oak-leaves of a 
major. The fact that he was older than I, and "in", gave me 
some hope until he showed me the large original of a contour 
map of Gettysburg, the reduced fac-simile of which had been the 
bane of many of our "conferences" at Harrison. He said he 
superintended the field-work when that was made, and I realized 
the prestige such special training and ability should give. 

I found the Army and Navy Building as securely guarded as 
any camp in the enemy's country could be, but an exhibition of 
my card to Mr. Baker, signed by Mr. Marshall, was sufficient to 
pass me to the presence of the secretary's chief clerk. That func- 
tionary greeted me as an expected guest and declared, "The vice- 
president and secretary of war are closeted together in the secre- 
tary's private office — will you go on in?" 

"No, thank you," I decided, "I was not invited to a joint con- 
ference between those officials and will wait here." 

Presently the small but sprightly figure of Mr. Marshall, clad 
in Palm Beach suit and agitating a Panama hat, appeared. He 
noticed me at once and exclaimed : 

28 



I MEET SECRETARY OF WAR BAKER 




m&s&* 



VICE-PRESIDENT MARSHALL 
PRESENTS ME TO SECRE- 
TARY OF WAR BAKER 



"Eve just been in talking to Mr. Baker about your case, Min- 
turn — it won't be necessary for you to take much of bis time, but 
I want you to meet him," and he led the way back through several 
rooms to a west-front one. The secretary of war was next to the 
window with his desk between us. 
He rose and came forward with out- 
stretched hand as the vice-president 
exclaimed, "Mr. Baker, this is Mr. 
Minturn, the man I've been talking 
to you about." 

We shook hands and were ex- 
changing the usual compliments 
when Mr. Marshall interrupted with 
— "What are you going to do now, Minturn ?" 

"Anything to advance the cause I'm here on," I replied. 

"Get in the machine and ride back with me," and after making 
our adieus to the secretary we entered his high-speed Winton, 
emblazoned with the coat-of-arms of the United States. 

"I met McCain at dinner last night," the vice-president 
volunteered as we were passing the White House, "that's the 
place to talk to people when you want to get next to them, and 
in my usual blunt way I jumped on him and wanted to know why 
the army was treating my friend Minturn so shabbily, and told 
him Senator New and your other friends in Congress and myself 
were going to have a bill passed commissioning you a lieutenant 
if there was no other way to get around the bar of over-age!" 

"That was awfully kind and I thank you more than I can 
express," I took advantage to say, "the way you go after things 
is a real tonic to a half-discouraged man. May I ask what 
General McCain said in reply ?" 

"He said 'don't have any special bills passed— the army's 
opposed to politically made commissions and it would be a bad 
precedent and a bad thing in the end for Minturn.' He said your 
case had been on his mind all day — since the two senators and you 
called on him this morning. He told me to write a full statement 
of your case and get it to him at once and he would take it up 
with the army board ; that you are too old to be made to associate 
with lieutenants who are all youngsters, and assured me the 
board would find some way to give you a much higher commis- 
sion." These were opiate words to me. Thought is quick, and 

29 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

spurred by such narcotics, I glimpsed in imagination little golden 
leaves bursting like the tender foliage of spring-time from the 
tops of my shoulders. 

"Secretary Baker has just told me," he continued, slightly 
interrupting the trance I was in, "that he would be present when 
the army board considered your case and would lend a helping 
hand, so I believe matters will come out all right in the end for 
you." My open mind accepted this conjecture as proof on the 
strength of which my gold leaves turned to silver, and far up in 
the blue sky — hot as it was- — I heard the shrill cry of eagles — a 
pair of them — and they circled around coming closer at each circle 
until in time they perched, one on each of my shoulders, where 
the silver leaves had been. 

We had reached the Senate office-building and the machine 
had stopped at the curb, where we both got out, and, greatly en- 
couraged and very grateful too, I again thanked the vice-presi- 
dent, gave him the necessary data for the statement asked for by 
the adjutant general and asked: 

"What shall I do now, Mr. Marshall, remain here and watch 
things up, or go on back home?" 

"Well, Minturn," the vice-president replied, with his inimit- 
able Hoosier drawl, "I've always found when a man has bothered 
his friends and they've done all they can for him, it's good policy 
not to keep on bothering them !" That left but one thing for me 
to do — go back home. I told him so, and as we parted he de- 
clared, "You'll hear from the board, Minturn — I don't know how 
soon, but you'll hear." 

Mark Thistlethwaite was too good a newspaper man to miss an 
item, which accounts for the following in the Indianapolis Star 
the day before I got back home. It served to quiet the malicious 
rumors about the cause of my discharge from the training camp : 

"INDIANAPOLIS MAN, 56, FIGHTS FOR CHANCE TO 
GO TO FRONT. 
(Special to The Indianapolis Star.) 
"Washington, July 13. — Secretary of War Baker was con- 
fronted today by Joseph A. Minturn, of Indianapolis, formerly 
a member of the Indiana Legislature, now a patent lawyer of 
prominence. He entered the officers' training camp at Fort 
Benjamin Harrison when it started, and only a few days ago was 
given his discharge, the reason being that he is too old to make an 
officer. Mr. Minturn pleads guilty to being fifty-six years old, 

30 



MORE WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENCE 



but is strong and athletic and enthused with the fighting spirit. 
He says there has been a member of the Minturn family in every 
war in which the country has engaged, and that he never would 
get over it if he is not permitted to bear out the family tradition 
and go to the front in this crisis. 

"Vice-President Marshall is much interested in his case and 
secured an audience for him with Secretary Baker. The secretary 
of war promised to give the case his personal attention and, if 
possible, to waive the age regulation." 

Not having heard from Washington by July 26, I made excuse 
for calling Mr. Marshall's attention to my case by forwarding 
four letters of recommendation and writing in part : 

"Your letter to General McCain in my behalf was written on 
the 13th inst, which will be two weeks ago by the time this 
reaches you. Would it be impertinent to call attention to this 
lapse of time while also forwarding the inclosures for consid- 
eration with your former letter? I appreciate the many weighty 
questions now before the war department and also taxing your 
time, all of which make me hesitate to write of a matter prin- 
cipally concerning myself, and only do so from fear that my 
silence may be taken as evidence of waning interest, whereas, in 
fact, my desire has increased if that were possible. I wish also to 
thank you again for the interest and assistance so generously 
extended during my recent visit there, which have so encouraged 
me to hope for a successful outcome." 

To this Mr. Thistlethwaite replied July 30, 19 17 : 

"The vice-president wants me to say to you that you must not 
be apprehensive because of lapse of two weeks in your case, with- 
out information. That would not be regarded by him as at all 
unusual. He is forwarding to the adjutant general the papers you 
enclose." 

And further, on August 4, 1917: 

"We have filed the letters you submitted and the adjutant 
general has informed the vice-president that your name has been 
placed on the list being examined by the committee of army 
officers. I was unable to ascertain just when we might expect 
action." 

I have gone to the point of tediousness in the above because I 
want the reader to assist me in deciding to what influence I owed 

31 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

my re-enlistment in the army. Personally I am not able to say. 
It was pronounced impossible and yet was permitted. On July 
27 — the very day after I wrote, as above, to the vice-president, I 
received orders by way of the Central Department at Chicago to 
re-enlist in the training camp from which I had been discharged. 
On July 30, Mr. Marshall forwarded the papers I sent him, and 
four days later I was advised by his office that my name had been 
placed on the list being examined by a committee of army offi- 
cers, and it was not then known (August 4) when action might 
be expected. 

Perhaps I should have ignored the following telegram, which 
seems to be in answer to my letter to General Barry, and waited 
for the army board to hand me a commission higher than a 
lieutenancy, and perhaps (and most likely, my intuition 
prompted) this was all the action I would get from any source : 

"Ft. Benj. Harrison, Ind.. 1 132 p. m. July 27, 1917. 

"Joseph A. Minturn, 

"Pythian Building, Indianapolis. Ind. 

"War Department authorizes yonr re-enlistment this training 
camp if desired. Report at once to post adjutant, otherwise 
advise. 

"UPHAM, Adjutant." 



3 2 



ORDERED BACK TO COMPANY A 



CHAPTER V 



MY RE-ENLISTMENT 



When I reported next day the adjutant took pains to let me 
know that re-enlistment did not guarantee a commission, which I 
would have to take chances on winning, but he noted in pencil to 

my company commander : " his name should be considered 

by the board as age has been waived, per 4 Ind. A. G. O., July 
24, 1917." 

I was reassigned to Company A, Lieutenant (now captain) 
Lockwood. Examinations for commission were already over with 
and that very morning General Glenn was giving the candidates 
of A company their last inspection. They were in formation in 
front of A barracks when I arrived from headquarters, and Cap- 
tain Lockwood told me to wait around in the orderly room a 
while as the board might desire to question me. After the others 
were dismissed I was ordered outside where I had a "formation" 
all by myself. The board completely circumnavigated me ; then 
the general with his coatless 
rotund figure set off in good 
opera bouffe by leather leg- 
gings to the knees and military 
slouch hat with gold band, 
squared himself and asked : 

"How old are you?" 

I felt devilish enough to 
reply, "just twenty-four days 
older than when you asked the 
same question and discharged me for over-age," but only smiled 
and answered : 

"Fifty-six years, one month and eight days, sir." 

Captain Lockwood then called his attention to my telegram 
and the adjutant's notation on it, which the general read and 
continued : 

33 




'HOW OLD ARE YOU: 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

"What was your business in civil life?" 
"What previous military experience have you had?" 
"Do you play baseball, football or golf?" 
— and that was the full extent of my examination for a commis- 
sion in the army. 

After drawing my equipment and re-establishing my bunk in 
the old squad room — now not nearly so crowded as when I left, 
I was ordered to hunt up the company and fall in for the regular 
schedule. I found the boys holding moot-court in the shade of a 
spreading oak. They immediately adjourned and came in a body 

to greet me, shouting 

"Look who's here!" 
"Dad's back !" 
"How did you put it over ?" 

That same day it was rumored that a courier had started for 
Washington by way of Chicago with the recommendations for 
commissions. None of us were told, so far as I know, what 
branch of the service we were to be commissioned in or the rank 
we were to receive. The suspense of waiting until August 15, — 
the scheduled closing day of the camp, was great and interfered 
with the effectiveness of the final days of training. The morale 
was so low that Ohio cared not a whit whether Indiana sang, and 
Indiana was as dumb as a moulting canary. 

"What's the matter with you?" General Glenn chided, "we've 
done all we are going to do to you, so you might as well look 
pleasant about it." But General Despondency was in command 
and perhaps for that reason no real casualties occurred in the 
widely advertised mock battle between the two regiments with 
which the camp closed. It was indeed so tame that the referees 
called it a draw. 

But everything human must end and so did the first officers' 
training camp. We were lined up for the finish in four rows and 
had not long to wait to learn why. Those in the front row were 
"mullineers" and others to be commissioned captains of infan- 
try ; in the next row, first lieutenants ; in the third row, second 
lieutenants of mixed branches of the service, as quartermaster, 
intelligence, machine gun and the like, and in the fourth row 
were the poor fellows to be rejected for various reasons. They 
went home without commissions, and in many cases with broken 
hearts, as some I knew well confessed to me. 

34 



SECOND LIEUTENANT, Q. M. C. 

I was in the third row and was asked if I would accept a com- 
mission as second lieutenant in the quartermaster corps. 
Frankly, I was disappointed. I wanted active service and not a 
Q. M. job which I feared would be a clerical one in the States 
for the duration of the war. Besides, the rank was not what the 
vice-president, speaking for the adjutant general and the secre- 
tary of war, had voluntary promised. But there was no time for 
debate ; a chance to serve was offered and I decided if I were 
really sincere after all the fuss made to get in, I should take what 
was offered, and work for a transfer and promotion ; so I 
answered "yes." 

I was eventually transferred to the engineers after even more 
effort and opposition, and reached the grade of captain before 
the brief war ended. So many unusual obstacles invariablv 
blocked the way, however, that the War of the Roses, or some of 
the Forty-year contests of history were needed to give me time 
enough to capture the eagles of my Washington vision. This one 
of only two years was altogether inadequate in the matter of time. 



35 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



CHAPTER VI 

ARMY LIFE IN THE Q. M. C, EQUIPPING A NEW ARMY 

We were given fourteen days' vacation at the close of the 
training camp, after which I was to report for duty to the com- 
manding officer at Camp Taylor, near Louisville, Ky., with 
nearly two hundred other new quartermaster-officers from 
Harrison — none higher in rank than second lieutenant. We were 
told that we would be given special instruction there for thirty 
days, after which we would be advanced in rank according to 
merit and definitely assigned. 

I purposely reported ahead of time and was fortunately 
assigned to serve under Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) 
Pierson — the camp quartermaster. He was an old cavalry offi- 
cer with hair as gray as mine if he'd had any. He was as blunt as 
the square end of a pencil and could jolly or take the hide off 
with equal thoroughness and ease. The only officer I afterward 
liked as well was his first assistant, Captain Kennedy. I was 
directly under Kennedy — absolutely ignorant of the voluminous 
and complicated paper work which I naturally despised, made 
lots of mistakes which I now suspect Captain Kennedy was as 
ignorant of as I, but which he scolded me freely for when checked 
and flaunted by our natural enemy — the division quartermaster — 
and who looked at me with such all-pitying scorn and asked why 
I didn't study my quartermaster manual when I went to him for 
instructions, that I hated him till he did me so many unexpected 
favors and proved himself a Prince in disguise. 

Equipping a camp with a hundred organizations having a 
quota of eighty thousand soldiers when full, is a big job at any 
time, and was harder then by reason of inadequate supplies. 
The supply officer of every unit, whether he had his full quota 
of men or had but fifty of them or only five, looked to see what 
supplies he was entitled to if full — then raced to the camp quar- 
termaster and demanded the articles. We couldn't fill the requi- 
sitions because we didn't have the goods, and we hadn't the goods 
because demand was greater than supply. 

36 



CAMP QUARTERMASTER ROUTINE 



"They're not on earth !" Colonel Pierson often expostulated. 
Pots, pans, cans, stoves, tables, knives, forks, axes, brooms, 
mops, shoes, shirts, hats, blouses, soap, wood, coal, oats, hay, 
mules, horses, wagons, automobiles, trucks, desks, typewriters, 
all kinds of food supplies and articles innumerable had to be issued 
on memorandum receipts in triplicate, named and alphabetically 
arranged as prescribed in the quartermaster's bible — the O. M. 
Manual, as : 

Axes, meat, six-pound 2 

Boilers, tin, 15x24 cooking 3 

Cans, G. I. large 2 

Pots, iron, 12-inch 4 

Tables, kitchen, folding, small 1 

etc., etc. 

"Expendible" articles — those destroyed by use like wood, coal, 

hay, soap and foods, were listed separately from the rest, because 

the rest were "accountable," i. c, had to be accounted for by the 

supplv officer, who drew them on memorandum receipt. He was 




Mi ^vfe/st*,. :jjn - ■■£&■■. 




PART OF THE CAMP QUARTERMASTER'S WAREHOUSES AT CAMP TAY- 
LOR, KY. THIS IS FROM ONE OF THE DRAWINGS THAT LED TO MY 
TRANSFER TO THE 309th ENGINEERS. See Page 44. 

required to return the goods, produce a receipt showing where he 
had legally delivered them to others, or pay for them before he 
would be finally discharged from the army. We were told such 
stories of how Old Accountability had gathered army officers in 
like an octopus and held them in his toils for life that we were in 
dread for our own future and longed for France and the front, 
where "accountability" was dropped. A few days before writing 

37 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

this I met a neighbor who held a commission as a quartermaster 
captain in the war and was just returned to civil life with an 
unsettled accountability of two hundred thousand dollars hanging 
over him. That is not pleasant and leads the wise ones to be 
over-zealous in learning how short weights and counts are made, 
and so on the alert to pick up issue articles that a soldier out of 
quarters lays his hat or coat off at his peril. At Camp Mills I 
put aside my belt and revolver for a minute, and when I looked 
around for them they were gone — nobody knew where. Auto- 
matically I demanded their return by the nearest quartermaster. 
He kindly offered to look for them if I could give a sufficient 
description, which I was fortunately able to do, and thereupon he 
raised the hinged lid of a convenient box, produced my lost arti- 
cles and handed them to me with the joking remark that I owed 
him something for taking care of my equipment. 

Old Accountability turns them all into expert salvagers. They 
will pick up every accountable article or piece of one, no matter 
how old. For, is it not well known that an old pair of shoes can 
be exchanged for a new pair, and that enough of the parts of an 
automobile properly surveyed — another expert performance — has 
been good many a time for a new one ? Just as enough of an old 
paper dollar has been exchanged for a new whole dollar at the 
United States Treasury. 

The few of us employed by the camp quartermaster were 
accounted fortunate by comrades who were not. Some of the 
latter were attached to regiments of the division, while the re- 
mainder — close to a hundred in number — were unattached and 
because their superiors were too busy to bother with them were 
left to their own devices pending the completion of a great quar- 
termaster training camp at Jacksonville, Fla., where we were all 
to go, according to an army periodical, our only source of infor- 
mation. Leggett, from old company A at Harrison, was attached 
to the Three Hundred and Ninth Engineer regiment and bragged 
so continuously about the fine mess there, the earnestness and 
efficiency of the officers and perfect discipline that I envied him. 
He was bound to see real service with such an organization, while 
my chances with a camp quartermaster were nil. But I was des- 
tined to go to France as an engineer officer of that regiment. 

General Hale, in the Orient when the United States declared 
war, was on his way home to take command of the Eighty-fourth 

38 



GENERAL HALE INSPECTS THE Q. M. OFFICERS 

division. When he arrived in October he tightened up rapidly 
on discipline. The young quartermaster officers had been 
knocked from pillar to post so far as bunking and messing were 
concerned and left generally to do as they pleased. They attended 
the Kentucky races by day and played poker or called on the 
Louisville girls until so late at night that they acted on the sug- 
gestion of the song: 

"O, it's nice to get up in the morning ; but it's nicer to lie in 
bed," and often ate a late breakfast — they had their own mess at 
this time in the barracks, where they bunked — arrayed in pajamas 
or extreme negligee. This came to the ears of General Hale soon 
after his arrival, and all unannounced he made an 8 a. m. inspec- 
tion. What he heard when the boys, peremptorily ordered out of 
bed, suggested what General Hale was ; where he might go to, 
etc., before they realized that he was right there listening, and 
what General Hale saw when he lined them up without ceremony, 
was the scandal of the camp. They had not been true to their 
trusts as officers and gentlemen — had disgraced the service, etc., 
etc., he declared. They were almost put in irons and were made 
very, very unhappy and were kept equally busy during the re- 
mainder of their stay at Camp Taylor. Yet, they were more 
sinned against than sinning. I knew them well — knew their 
hearts were in the right place — that they were loyal, willing and 

intelligent. But they were . 

young — full of energy and .^ ^T^CiifJlri 

as ready to fight the Ger- 
mans as they were to 
throw themselves to the 
dogs. They had been mis- 
led by promises and then 
shamefully neglected — 
shamefully neglected 
— through no intention it may well be said, and perhaps unavoid- 
ably in view of the rush and confusion of our National unpre- 
paredness ; but General Hale found a way to keep them out of 
disgrace after that, which might easily have been applied in the 
first place. 

As soon as troops began to roll in under the operation of the 
conscription law these unattached quartermaster officers were put 
in charge and developed great efficiency in handling the excited 

39 




GENERAL, HALE INSPECTS THE QUAR- 
TERMASTER OFFICERS 



. THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

mobs that marched, marched, marched in unbroken shouting 
columns from the unloading platforms, past our offices, to the 
chutes, where they were shunted off like dumb animals are to 
their pens at a great stock yard. 

If they came from Gary, Indianapolis, Evansville, or where 
not in Indiana, there was the properly labeled Indiana chute with 
fenced-in aisles so the breachy ones couldn't jump out and run 
away, I suppose, leading off from a main artery, each appropri- 
ately lettered, and commandeered by quartermaster Second 
Lieuies, who kept the men moving while other details stood at the 
main entrance counting them and checking them off on talley 
sheets brought from home by one of their own number — proud to 
be thus honored. Illinois and Kentucky had similar chutes. 

Train loads of men arrived at all hours of the twenty-four. 
Often after quitting my own work at night I stood by the road to 
answer the hand-waving and cheers of the endless parade. Some 
were in shirt-sleeves or wore the overalls of the farm, while the 
fashionable dress of others suggested all of the modern conve- 
niences of home to which they would be strangers from now on. 
Mosl of them put on a brave front, which gave me a greater feel- 
in- of sadness than the sight of a melancholy face did. 

I followed them to the chutes and saw many a doting father 
say his last farewell to a son whom he was so loath to leave, that 
he had followed him here from home, and I saw many a hilarious 
lad give up a bottle that was sustaining him, and that he was 
slyly smuggling into the camp. A few of these men were surly 
and had to be rough-handled ; one or two were so terrified they 
took their own lives ; the love or homesickness of others showed 
in their disconsolate faces, but ninety per cent, of all were cheer- 
ful and brave youngsters whom one couldn't look at without 
loving — whom one felt like protecting in some way, but who 
would, probably, be found protecting you in any real emergency. 

This first favorable impression of the material from wdiich 
our army was to be made was not afterwards lessened by our 
long intimate association — when they were the common soldiers 
and I but a second lieutenant one rank above them. In no other 
way could I have secured the first-hand knowledge of the rank 
and file of our great army which is mine, and I have fate to thank 
now for starting me in at the bottom. I propose to do justice to 
the enlisted men, for they and the lieutenants — the much-joked 

40 



GENERAL BUNDY'S REPLY 

about "shave tails" — the second lieuies who led them, are the 
chaps who did the real fighting and won the war. Who ever 
heard of a captain or a major or any of the higher officers going 
"over the top" or capturing a machine-gun nest ? No, thev were 
back in their "post of command" — in some safe dugout or cellar. 
They were supposed to furnish the brains and issue the orders ; 
they did decide on the zero hour, but after that, led by the second 
lieuies, the soldiers quickly advanced beyond any control than 
their own. General Bundy is credited with a reply that expresses 
this. In answer to a criticism that his men were going forward 
too fast he said, "If the Germans can't stop them how in hell 
can I ?" 

It is said jokingly in the army : "The major knows nothing 
and does nothing ; the captain knows, but does nothing and the 
second lieuey knows nothing, but does it all." 

Getting back, however, to the camp quartermaster at Taylor — 
there were at least fifty people in one long room, each provided 
with a nice office desk which he placed to suit his own fancy. 
Consequently they were in fantastic disorder. I had become ex- 
pert at the end of the first week in issuing kitchen supplies on 
memorandum receipts, and had been on the job all Sunday morn- 
ing when Colonel Pierson came down the line, stopped at my desk 
for the first time, and said : "This office looks like Hades had 



'^# 







CAMOUFLAGE IN WAR. THE SMOKE SCREEN 
41 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

struck it, and you look old enough to know how to put it in order. 
Come to my office and I'll give you my idea." There he helped 
me to diagram a new arrangement, then told me to go and carry 
it out. Assisted by a detail of enlisted men I started on changes 
against which every occupant of a desk protested and argued 
why he had to have his just the way it was. Captain Kennedy 
had built a barricade with his and his clerks' desks to protect 
himself from the mob of supply officers and ordered me, with a 
scowl, to keep my hands off. I told him with malign joy for 
imagined past indignities that I was obeying orders from Colonel 
Pierson and couldn't vary from them without the colonel's in- 
structions. Then he looked at my diagram, smiled for the first 
time in his life, so I thought then, and said : "All right — go ahead 
— I told the colonel when he asked who could carry this out that 
I thought you could." 

Captain Kennedy had been a quartermaster sergeant in his 
young days, but for many years since had been in business at 
St. Louis. He returned to the army for the war and brought 
from civil life the initiative and courage to meet emergencies 
which the army officer, bound by red tape and cowed by the ever- 
threatening menace of personal accountability, was deficient in. 
The fact that men at Camp Taylor suffered less from inadequate 
supplies than soldiers in many other camps was due to Kennedy's 
promptness and nerve — ably backed by his commanding officer. 
This was illustrated in the early supply of troops with blankets. 
We had exhausted the quartermaster depot at Jeffersonville, and 
were advised that fifteen or twenty thousand conscripted men 
would arrive in a couple of days. The nights were now quite cold 
and there were no blankets in our warehouse nor to be had in time 
through military channels. The trained army quartermaster, with 
the fear of Old Accountability in his heart would have prepared 
five copies of a formal requisition for blankets, sent three copies 
to the quartermaster general at Washington, one to division 
headquarters, and placed the other in his own files and awaited 
developments. And while developments were maturing the thou- 
sands of recruits would have arrived and suffered from exposure, 
resulting in sickness and death to many ; the country would have 
been horrified at the inefficiency of the army, and another blow 
would thus have been struck for the Kaiser. Realizing this. 
Captain Kennedy wired dealers in all neighboring western cities 

42 



ORDERING BLANKETS 

for quotations on blankets and comforts, and quantity available 
for immediate delivery. From the replies he wired hurry-up 
orders — $40,000 worth in one instance — which were filled and 
delivered by fast freight in time to meet the emergency. Now 
that the war is over it would not be inconsistent for the depart- 
ment to court-martial Kennedy for such irregularity. 

There were several opportunities to specialize in Quartermas- 
ter work, such as in transportation, subsistence, finance, Jeffer- 
sonville depot work, and I was urged by a comrade to sign up for 
billeting service in France and perhaps would have gone had I 
known something of the French language. He assured me he 
would teach me enough on the way over. I think now it was for- 
tunate that I accepted none of these opportunities which would 
have negatived the one that came later and was accepted to my 
greater liking. But who can tell? Life is a chance anyway and 
I might have gone to France early and had greater opportunities 
than attended the average billetnig officer, whose lot I observed 
there was not a happy one. 



43 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



CHAPTER VII 



HOW I BECAME AN ARMY INSTRUCTOR AND CAMOUFLUER 



In three or four weeks we had the camp fairly well supplied 
with "pots and pans and G. I. cans," so it was only necessary to 
work an hour or two when Sunday came. The rest of the day I 
had to myself and made a few sketches of our quartermaster sur- 
roundings, which I intended sending home for the edification of 
the folks there. My clerk, Grant, showed them to Captain 




THE WITCHERY OF CAMOUFLAGE. SCREEN A-B IS 

PAINTED TO REPRESENT A VILLAGE HID BY IT AND 

AN ARMY MARCHES TO POSITION BACK OF THE 

SCREEN 

Kennedy, who asked me to give them to him. He said he didn't 

know I could do that kind of work, and put me to sketching. 

Soon I was not doing anything else and liked it inconceivably 

better than listing — 

Forks, meat, three-tined 6 

Knives, paring, flat back 12 

Skewers, steel, 6-inch 60 

etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum. 

Some of these sketches he took to division headquarters to 
Colonel Van Dyne, division quartermaster, who showed them to 
Major Kruger, then engaged on schedules for proposed division 
schools, and who gave them to Colonel Guthrie, of the Three Hun- 
dred and Ninth Engineers, who was looking for an instructor in 
military landscape sketching and camouflage. 

"The very job I'm looking for," I exclaimed when the cap- 
tain told me about it. "I was a designer and engraver in the 

44 



HOW I BECAME A CAMOUFLUER 

early years of my life, have always practiced free-hand drawing 
in my business, and have spent my Saturday half-holidays for 
years in out-door sketching classes of the artist, Will Forsyth." 

Mr. Forsythe had indeed urged me to get into military sketch- 
ing and had written a letter along that line to the adjutant gen- 
eral which I had forwarded through Mr. Marshall, in which he 
said : 

"Among those who recently graduated from the officers' 
training camp at Ft. Benjamin Harrison, was Mr. Joseph A. 
Minturn. * * * * It has occurred to me that he has a 
special talent which should be considered in any assignment which 
is given him, — free-hand drawing and oil and water color sketch- 
ing from nature. 

"Mr. Minturn, whom I have known almost all of my life, has 
always taken an interest in and has practiced drawing. We were 
art students together as boys, — for many years he followed 
designing and engraving on wood, and he has for several recent 
years been a pupil of mine in his leisure time in out-doors draw- 
ing and observation where he has exhibited quick perception, and 
portrayal ability, and it seems to me that it would be well, if 
such qualifications are available at the front, to send him there, 
and so make the best use of him, especially as he desires most of 
all to be in the active strenuous life of the war and seems to be 
well fitted for it. 

"You will, I hope, pardon me for this suggestion, but it is 
made from the point of view that a man is best fitted to render 
the most efficient service in that for which he is naturally inclined 
and is best prepared. 

"Very sincerely yours, 

"WILLIAM FORSYTH, 
"Instructor at John Herron Art School." 

Day after day passed without further developments until I 
began to fear this was like so many other of my army dreams that 
never came true. "Why don't you go and ask them — that's the 
way I do!" Captain Kennedy counseled. So I put on my best 
Kahn tailored dress coat and starched collar, rubbed up my nar- 
row-last civilian tans and imitation pig-skin puttees and called on 
Colonel Van Dyne. He is a gentleman and received me like one ; 
but referred me to Major Kruger, who in turn sent me to Colonel 
Guthrie, the commander of the engineers, whom Leggett had 
described as a stickler for military etiquette. I went a back way 
so as to practice the salute and standing at attention, and to 
memorize my little piece which began, "Sir, Lieutenant Minturn 

45 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

requests permission to speak to Colonel Guthrie, etc., etc." — then 
in my ignorance rapped at his private door bearing the legend 
"Commanding Officer," instead of approaching properly through 
the ante-room of his adjutant. He invited me in, returned my 
salute, listened to my opening statement, smiled and said, "That 
was very well done, lieutenant, except that you should have 
entered through the adjutant's office — sit down and tell me about 
yourself." 

He was over six feet tall, inclined to slenderness, forehead 
high and intellectual, scant hair, which needed trimming, and 
waved a little, prominent cheek bones, keen eyes, aquiline nose 
and had a pleasant but tired expression about his eyes and mouth. 



cream O 

BROWN 
GREEN 




PAINTING A WHOLE VEHICLE SO IT CAN'T BE SEEN 

One took him at once for an intelligent gentleman, and the 
language he used aside from any suggestion of a brogue made one 
suspect that some of his antecedents were Irish. 

He was interested in my army experience to date and in Mr. 
Forsyth's letter. 

"Do you know anything about camouflage?" he inquired. 

"Not by that name, sir. Just what is it ?" I had to ask. 

"It's the art of hiding things with paint — the painting of a 
wheel or a whole vehicle, for example, so it can't be seen." 

Now that rather staggered me, but I was determined no little 
thing like that should stand in my way, so I responded promptly : 

"I never tried, sir, but if it can be done by anybody, rest 
assured I'll do it." 

"That's all right, be gorra! It don't make a whale of a dif- 
46 



I MEET MAJOR FULMER 

ference whether you've tried before or not.' You have the engi- 
neer spirit and we're going to give you a chance to try." 

"Bain!" turning to his lieutenant colonel, "those men out there 
count time like beating a bass drum — one, two, three. FOUR — 
one, two, three, FOUR ! Go out and stop it." 

To me again he said, "Have you met Major Fulmer?" 

I had not even heard of him, and so admitted. 

"Well, you should meet Fulmer ; he's an authority on military 
landscape sketching. Come with me to division headquarters and 
I'll introduce you," and we crossed a field which until that year 
raised asparagus but stirred by squads of drilling recruits now 
raised clouds of highly fertilized dust. 

At headquarters Colonel Guthrie introduced me to Major 
John J. Fulmer, inspector of the Eighty-fourth division, who was 
destined to influence my army career more than any other man. 
He was of the class of middleweights physically, with scant hair, 
not particularly caused I would say by sitting in damp churches, 
although he was kind-hearted and one of the most conscientious 
of men. Musketry, with which landscape sketching and target 
designation are but related parts, was his hobby, but his modesty 
helped others at his own expense so that he did not get the pro- 
motion as soon in the late war which the importance of his labors 
in it won. To him, as he rode through France, all landscapes 
were possible battlefields wherein houses, trees, or conspicuous 
things, were reference points from which hedges, roads and 
animals were enemy positions so many fingers distant at such and 
such o'clock. He was of that Pennsylvania Dutch stock which 
revels in straight rows of whitewashed trees, and found no joy 
in French moss, because it always covered up dirt ; nor in quaint 
French architecture because the houses were notoriously devoid 
of plumbing and all modern conveniences. Barring these congen- 
ial defects he was the finest officer and man who ever carried a 
mill-scale in his pocket or wore a swagger-stick. Colonel 
McNabb used to say he was orderly, credulous and optimistic. 

"If you can use Lieutenant Minturn for a week or two until 
our school opens, he's at your service, Major," the colonel re- 
marked during the visit, and the major said I was just in time to 
make the drawings for a new edition of his book on Panoramic 
Sketching that he was working on. His book was very largely 
copied from later by the war department for a bulletin on this 

47 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

subject distributed to the army. He first demonstrated that land- 
scape drawing from nature is an easy mechanical operation, 
devoid of mystery, requiring neither genius nor art. That if a 
church tower, a house-gable, a tree, a hill-crest or any other prom- 
inent object be taken as a reference point to start from each time, 
the location of any object to the right or left can be marked on the 
top edge of the paper by holding it so both objects can be seen at 
once. A small cross or arrowhead will help to fix the place of 
the reference point. 




A MILITARY LANDSCAPE SKETCH. (Reduced One-half.) See Page 49. 

The height of the object and its other location in the picture 
are similarly measured on the side-edge of the sheet. A hori- 
zontal line is drawn across the sheet to begin with wherever the 
highest point of the picture is to be ; then this line is always held 
level and even with the top of the highest object in the landscape 
while things below are being marked on the side-edge of the 
paper. To draw a tree, for example, its exact location to the 
right, say, of the reference point is found by the above method 
and recorded by a dot at the top of the sheet. The tree should 
appear somewhere below in the picture in a vertical line from 
that dot. Then the foot and top of the tree will be found and 
dotted on the left edge of the sheet, and where horizontal lines 
from the side dots cross the vertical line the lowest and highest 
parts of the tree should be drawn. The width of the tree and 

48 



MILITARY LANDSCAPE SKETCHING 

distance from the ground to its first branches can be similarly 
measured if necessary, and in like manner the position and appar- 
ent size of houses, location of cross-roads, hill crests, fences and 
all parts of a picture can be mechanically determined. Presently 
these controlling features will be numerous enough to enable 
remaining details to be drawn in by eye without further 
measurements. 

Another requirement is that the paper be held the same dis- 
tance from the eye each time a measurement is made, which is 
accomplished by passing a string of suitable length around the 
draftsman's neck and tying the ends in holes through the side 
edges of the drawing board. 

In the army sheets with horizontal and vertical direction lines 
are furnished in pads for this kind of work. They aid the eye to 
carry across without other lines being drawn. The vertical lines 
are one-half inch apart and subtend an angular measurement of 
fifty mils when the drawing is made with the paper fifteen 
inches from the eyes. The mil is the unit of angular measure- 
ment in artillery and rifle ranging, hence it is important that the 
sketches be drawn to a mil scale. 

With a ruler showing inches divided into tenths and held 
twenty inches from the eye, each tenth of an inch will measure or 
cover five mils 1,000 yards away. The leaf-sight of a Spring- 
field rifle, or an average person's finger at twenty inches, covers 
fifty mils at 1,000 yards. 

Major Fulmer taught me how to sketch — what features were 
important in a military sketch and what were not and should be 
omitted ; how to describe a location and its extent by mils with 
reference to the clock-face; how to estimate ranges (distances) 
by the use of the mil scale, and many other things of the utmost 
importance in my future work. 

In one of his lectures before the officers of the camp he had 
an immense landscape painting on the stage, fully five feet high 
and fifteen or eighteen feet long, and, to show how difficult it 
was to tell soldiers where to direct their fire he had a half-dozen 
of the audience stand and face about ; then pointing to a spot 
where he said an enemy machine-gun was firing on us asked an 
officer, it happened to be our old instructor, Captain Miller, of A 
company at Harrison, to rise : 

"You are in command of a platoon of infantry and are being 

49 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

fired on by that machine-gun ; give the command to your men 
just where to return the fire!" 

Captain Miller knew how to give the command, "Range 600; 
reference point, small house at 12 o'clock ; target, three fingers at 
2:30 o'clock — fire at will, commence firing!" 

The half-dozen standing officers were then faced to the front. 
They had heard Captain Miller's directions without seeing the 
spot pointed out and were successively told to direct the placing 
of a pin-tag where each understood the target to be fired at was 
located. Some were near one end of the picture, some at the 
other : some near the middle top. and some far below and none 
anywhere near the right place. 




CAMOUFLAGED "CALAMITY JANE" FIRING THE LAST SHOT OF THE 
WORLD WAR 

"Your platoon would have been annihilated, was the major's 
conclusion, "if you can't locate a target from a good description 
how can you expect your men to do it from a probable bad one ?" 

He was always drilling himself on target designation and esti- 
mation of ranges, and after he had explained the system and 
formulae he began to drill me. 

"Lieutenant," he said about the third day, "yonder flagstaff is 
sixty feet high. Measure it with your mil scale and tell me the 
range." 

5o 



ESTIMATING DISTANCES 

"It measures fifteen mils," I repliec} after making- sure of it, 
"and you say its actual height is sixty feet, which, reduced to 
yards makes twenty — then, according to the rule, twenty multi- 
plied by one thousand and divided by fifteen — the number of mils, 
makes the distance 1.333 I /3 yards." 

"That was easy. Now try this one: I've paced the distance 
between those telegraph poles and know they are set forty-four 
yards apart. Now, measure the distance in mils between the two 
I point out to you and give me the range." 

"The distance measures forty miles by my scale. What 
formula does the major use on that for the range?" 

"Same one; the only difference is that the measured object is 
on the ground instead of in the air, that is, horizontal instead of 
vertical." 

"Then forty-four multiplied by one thousand and divided by 
forty, the mil measurement, gives 1,100 yards as the range?" 

"Yes." 

At another time he said: "On the road yonder by the camp 
quartermaster is a column of new recruits in fours. The road as 
measured on the camp map on the wall there you will find is 
1,200 yards from us. Measure the length of the column and tell 
me how many men 'there are." 

"The column covers 120 mils from head to rear," I replied 
after measuring, "1,200 yards, the distance, multiplied by 120 
mils and divided by one thousand according to the rule, gives 144 
yards as the length of the column, but I don't know how many 
men there are." 

"What's your rule for men per yard in a column of fours?" 

"If I ever knew, sir, I've forgotten." 

"It's two to the yard, paragraph 27 of your Field Service 
Regulations ; now don't forget that again !" 

On another occasion we were out walking, his favorite exer- 
cise, where he could revel in problems, when he stopped and 
pointing, said : "Measure the length of that trench on the far 
ridge and give me the range." 

I measured it as 150 mils, then had to refer to my note book 
for the formula and paced off three hundred yards toward the 
trench, took a second mil measurement, which was two hundred 
mils. Three hundred yards multiplied by two hundred mils and 
the product divided by fifty, the difference between the two mil 

St 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

measurements, gave 1,200 yards as the range or distance from us 
to the trench. 

If this becomes tiresome to you who read it, remember it is 
but a suggestion of all we had to learn and practice and that we 
were many times more tired. I know of no other way to convey 
a conception of army tediousness and exactness to an outsider. 

By command of Major General Hale in special order No. 44, 
Eighty- fourth division, October 7, 191 7, I was attached to the 
Three Hundred and Ninth Engineers and directed to report to 
the commanding officer of that organization for duty, and on 
October 11, 1917, by S. O. No. 48, General Hale detailed me on 
special duty as instructor in the Engineer School of the Eighty- 
fourth division. This took me away from the quartermasters 
just in time to miss the rebuke and punishment given them by 
General Hale, as previously related. 

When the time came for me to leave Major Fulmer he gave 
me the following endorsement : 

"I have had an opportunity of closely observing the work of 
Lieutenant Joseph A. Minturn, Quartermaster Corps, since the 
organization of this command, the Eighty-fourth division, Camp 
Zachary Taylor, Kentucky. 

"His unusual ability to sketch is such as to make him a most 
valuable addition to the service. Probably in the engineer corps 
his work would prove of most value. During my service in the 
army, I have never seen anyone who was able to handle the sub- 
ject of military landscape sketching and master its details as 
quickly as Lieutenant Minturn. His experience in civil life no 
doubt contributed in a great measure to the grounding in this 
work. 

"I would strongly recommend him for the grade of captain, 
and the employment of his services in the engineers' corps and 
believe that should such transfer be made, the best interests of the 
service would be subserved. 

"J. J. FULMER, 
"Major of Infantry, 
"Division Inspector, 84th Division." 



McNABB'S STORY OF THE KAISER 



CHAPTER VIII 



IRON RIGID DISCIPLINE 



Discipline in the Three Hundred and Ninth Engineers was 
very strict. It reminded me of one of Colonel McNabb' stories : 

The Kaiser was inspecting- a certain crack regiment of Prus- 
sian guards, and asked its colonel what he considered its highest 
merit. 

"German iron-rigid discipline, your Majesty!" he replied 
promptly, "it vas so great your Majesty can call any man to be 
shot und he vill not so much as vink von eye." 

The Kaiser said he would try it. 




Mfc-£ 



^ 



CONTRAST INVISIBILITY OF BRITISH SOLDIER ON 

LEFT WEARING A SNIPERS ROBE, WITH ONE ON 

RIGHT, WHO IS NOT 

"Tell that man," indicating, "that his emperor is going to 
have him shot, which will be to him the great honor of demon- 
strating German iron-rigid discipline to all the world." 

"Yaw! So! your Majesty! and he vill not move ein leedle 
muscle !" declared the. delighted colonel as he placed the soldier 
and lined up a firing squad to shoot him. 

The Kaiser mercifully ordered the rifles to be loaded with 
blank cartridges, without of course, letting the soldier know it 
The squad fired. The soldier did not flinch or bat an eye, and 
William was delighted. 

"It vas great ! bring to me that soldier !" which was done, and 
the emperor grasping him by the hand proclaimed : 

53 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

"You have this day made for me the highest proof of German 
iron-rigid discipline, and you may now ask of me anything and I 
will at once it give to you ; anything, my man, which you may 
desire will your emperor now give ! Speak what it shall be." 

Realizing his greatest immediate need the soldier earnestly 
requested : "A clean pair of pants, your Majesty !" 

This story may not be regarded by all as particularly apt, but 
in view of their "bull pen" and other experiences which I could 
relate, I have felt that the "fear of God" was not the only kind 
the engineers had at times in their hearts. 

The army is at least one part of our Republic where men are 
not free and equal, and it requires a great man indeed to command 
implicit obedience without doing it largely through fear. I heard 
the complaint from a subordinate officer once that he couldn't 
make his men do so and so. "Then that's your fault," he was 
informed. "You have the greatest power back of you in the 
world ; the whole force of the United States, if you know how to 
use it." It is a common expression that "There's nothing the 
army can't do to a man except get him in a family way." One 
soon realizes the truth of this, and also how quickly those put in 
authority learn of their power and how to use it. Harsh treat- 
ment of subordinates to the point of bullying is too often encour- 
aged by promotion, and I am of the opinion that "hard boiled" 
Smith was instructed to make Paris unpopular for leave men by 
"treating them rough" and was acting within the tacit under- 
standing of his superiors. 

The frame of mind is often shown by casual statement, we 
were told, when instructed to be on the lookout for enemy spies 
and propagandists, and, if unstudied remarks do reveal the true 
heart of the speaker what would you think of this one? An 
order that all prisoners should be delivered to their companies 
each (.lay for regular company drill was not being obeyed, and the 
reason was demanded of the captains. The buck was passed — 
that's the army expression when responsibility is shifted to a sub- 
ordinate, as, the general orders the colonel, who orders the major, 
who orders the captain, who orders the first lieutenant, who 
orders the second lieutenant, who has to carry it out because 
there is no lower commissioned officer to pass it on to — and other 
excuses were made until one officer declared he didn't drill his 

54 



MEN ARE EXPENDIBLE IN THE ARMY 

prisoners because he was afraid those belonging to his unit would 
run away if allowed so much liberty. 

"That's easy enough to stop," was the answer. "Don't you 
know men are expendible in the army ? All you are required to do 
is to command them to halt — twice — and if they don't obey, ex- 
pend them !" 

In other words, if a soldier didn't halt after being twice told 
to halt, you should shoot him. The idea that a man was expendi- 
ble while the shoes he wore were accountable, struck me as a bit 
incongruous and I looked to see if the officer whose intelligence 
and humanity were above the average, smiled when he said it ; 
but he didn't, so, according to the test in the "Virginians" for 
being in earnest, he must have meant it. 




Mw 



THERE ARE MANY TREES IN FRANCE LIKE THESE, 

FRO w WHICH BRANCHES ARE CUT FOR FIREWOOD. 

NOTE GREATER INVISIBILITY OF SOLDIER IN 

SNIPER'S ROBE BY THE RIGHT TREE 

When I first knew the engineers the colonel and lieutenant 
colonel were West Point graduates, accustomed to dealing with 
regulars, who did not average high in any human quality. Firm 
treatment was required from the start, and the way they went 
after the officers as well as the men of that regiment reminds me 
of an election experience on Irish Hill in Indianapolis. I was 
sent there by the central committee to see that the ballot box was 
not stuffed or stolen, at least by the opposition. The approach 
to the polls was roped off according to law, and there was no 
legal reason why the men of the precinct should not approach to 
the line of the ropes. A crowd of them did line up there, but my 

55 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

precinct committeeman, with a record as a prize fighter backing 
him up, started in early to drive them off, which aroused protest 
and raised near riot so often that I became alarmed and expos- 
tulated with the committeeman : 

"Let them alone ; they have a right up to the ropes and are not 
doing any harm ; what's the use all the time starting a rough 
house ?" 

"Whatell d'you know about it?" he asked, "you may know 
how to run a prayermeetin' or election on the north side, but not 
down here. Ye gotta begin on 'ese guys early an' get 'em trained ; 
let 'em know whose boss or they'll be walkin' all over ye 'fore 
night !" 

We had a regimental mess where all of the officers ate, seated 
in the order of their rank. Being a second lieuey quartermaster 
my place might properly have been about three paces below the 
second cook, but I was favored with a seat close to the captains. 
I have no special grievance to ventilate in this or any other mat- 
ter, unless it might be because they took me in and didn't make 
company of me, but made me one of the family, even to the extent 
of taxing me on my mess bill for birthday cups and wedding sil- 
ver before I knew the officers apart. 

Whoever started that fad there has regretted it more than 
once, I am quite certain, unless it was originated by one of the 
many who was early ordered to France, in which case the poor 
fellow has had punishment enough. A nice silver cup to the 
daughter of the regiment, another to the son, and seventy-five- 
or one hundred-dollar table set to the first war bride, were all 
very nice had it stopped there, but similar events followed and the 
first were used only as precedents. Everybody remembers how 
thick the war brides were around every camp, and following 
them, the war babies, without any bonuses. The encouragement 
offered by the Three Hundred and Ninth Engineer Officers' 
Mess was irresistible. Bachelors of forty years' standing-, like 
Captain Wasson, got married and those who hadn't sweethearts 
before, met them like Lieutenant Bill, at one or the other of the 
numerous dances where "we put it over every organization in 
camp." They gave their hearts, camouflaged with little silver 
castles as favors, and became so popular with the Belles of 
Louisville, who easilv discovered the subterfuge, that the young 
ladies came out to Taylor and gave one or two return benefits. 

.6 



MILITARY TABLE ETIQUETTE 

But it was all a game of "heads you win and tails I lose" for an 
ancient benedict like myself. 

Nobody could eat at the engineer officers' mess until the rank- 
ing officer arrived. Whoever saw him first called "attention!" 
then everybody jumped to his feet and stood like a graven image 
until the officer was seated and commanded "rest !" At the close 
of the meal we remained until the ranking officer was ready to 
depart. When he arose "attention!" was called and everybody 
jumped and stood as stiff as before until the superior one was 
outside the door. 

Any officer coming in late or desiring to leave early had to 
approach, stand at attention, salute, get excused, about face and 
take his seat or retire as the case might be. We could only get 
even by exacting the same homage from our enlisted men ; exactly 
what was expected and ordered. 

Such formality is irritating until used to it. We had a number 
of casual officers attached to our organization for passage to 
Europe. On my way home months afterward I met one of them : 
"What's become of that colonel of yours, who made us jump up 
at meals until he was seated ?" he asked. 

"He was detached and sent to the front to the first army." 
"Well, if somebody don't shoot him in the back he'll miss 
what's coming to him. Your adjutant told me when I objected to 
all that damfoolishness that I'd either do as the rest did or get off 
the ship." 

"Why didn't you get off?" I inquired. 

"Because the water's too deep for wading, or I'd have done 
it, believe me !" 

This mess hall discipline is only a sample ; every part of our 
training and conduct was equally supervised. In the matter of 
hand-salutes the negligence of many and the lifeless slovenly 
wrong ways of doing a simple thing were provoking. Our colonel 
lined up his officers for a private exhibition and after correcting 
most of them, sent all out to instruct the men. Three days' grace 
was allowed after which anybody in that area who neglected to 
salute or did it wrong was given a chance to salute the air until 
he learned how, and his memory worked back to normal. 

"It's ten per cent, instruction and ninety per cent, follow up to 
see that the instructions are carried out," was his admonition, and 
he looked after the ninety per cent. 

57 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

As a result of rigid discipline the engineers, rank and file, 
were alert and always on the job. Illustrative of this our colonel 
tells the story of why he promoted a D company man. General 
Hale lived in what had been a farm house before the war, and 
which happened in laying out the camp to come in the engineer 
area. The man in question was doing guard duty on Post 5, 
which passed the general's house. Among the many things a 
soldier must be letter perfect in is his general orders, twelve in 
number, which he memorizes the same as the Ten CommandmerDts, 
and should equally understand the meaning of. If he knows 
them by heart and stops to think what they mean he is posted as 
to his general duties as a sentinel. They are numbered like this : 

I. To take charge of this post and all Government property 
in view. 
2. 

3- 

4- 

5- 

6. To receive, obey, and pass on to the sentinel who relieves 
me all orders from the commanding officer, officer of the day, 
and all officers and non-commissioned officers of the guard only. 

7- 

8. 

9. 

10. In any case not covered by instructions to call the cor- 
poral of the guard. 

11. 

\2. To be especially watchful at night, and, during the time 
for challenging, to challenge all persons on or near my post, and 
to allow no one to pass without proper authority. 

On the night of our story some one tried to pass the sentinel 
without proper authority, and, as instructed by his tenth general 
order, he sang out lustily. "Corporal of the guard, Number 5! 
Corporal of the guard. Number 5!" 

One of the general's staff stuck his head out of an upstairs 
window and called : 

"Shut up! you'll wake the general and everybody in camp!" 

"I obey orders from the commanding officer, officer of the 
day and officers and non-commissioned officers of the guard 
only, Sir! corporal of the guard, Number 5 ! corporal of the guard, 
Number 5 !" louder than before. 

58 



COMPULSORY SINGING EXERCISES 

"For God's sake, quit! your roar's worse than the fire whistle; 
if you'll hush I'll go myself and get the corporal of the guard for 
you !" 

When the staff officer told this story half complainingly at 
Division Conference next day our colonel said it was a compliment 
to his regiment and told the captain of D company to recommend 
that man for promotion. 

Everybody in the regiment had to sing regardless of voice or 
ability to carry a tune. It was part of the training ; the higher 
powers having decreed, I suppose, that if "music hath charms to 
soothe" it might hold the German soldier quiet enough for ours 




CAMOUFLAGE WIZANDRY: A CANVAS, A, B, C, D WITH A 

RUINED FRENCH TOWN PAINTED ON IT HID THE REAL 

TOWN AND A TRACK OVER WHICH TRAIN LOADS OF 

MUNITIONS PASSED UNDETECTED 

to stick him with a bayonet, or if not that, it might help our sol- 
diers to forget the blisters raised by the "last long mile ;" at any 
rate singing and music were made much of in our late war. 

Goldsmith was our able singing master and Chaplain Miller 
fluttered around, but more heartless ones were there to take the 
names of any standing mute. Many were penalized for failure 
to sing; the officers by confinement to the engineer area for 
periods, depending on their particular grade of muteness. This 
may seem mild punishment, but when it is remembered that 

59 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

everybody had a wife or sweetheart waiting in town it will be 
realized it was some hardship to pine away in the society of 
wooden barracks on leave-days when the arms of the beloved were 
open and their hearts yearning'. 

Chaplain Miller was strong on contests. He battled so with 
sin that his militant spirit carried into singing and athletics, over 
both of which he had advisory jurisdiction. He arranged con- 
tests between companies of our regiment and stirred up so much 
rivalry that he inspired the chaplains of other division units to 
challenge him and soon a war of song was on. 

Singing teams were trained to the minute on medleys that 
vanished into each other so imperceptibly that only the trained 
ear could tell : 

There's a long, long trail a-winding 

Into the land of my dreams, 
Where the nightingales are singing 

And the white moon beams ; 
There's a long, long night of waiting 

Until my dreams all come true, 
'Till the day when I'll be going down 
That long, long trail with you. 
Keep the home fires burning, 
While your hearts are yearning. 
Though your lads are far away, 
They dream of home. 
There's a silver lining 
Through the dark cloud shining, 
Turn the dark cloud inside out 
'Till the boys come home. 
Oh it's not the pack that you carry on your back 

Nor the rifle on your shoulder, 
Nor the five-inch crust of khaki colored dust 

That makes you feel your limbs are growing older. 
And it's not the hike on the hard turn-pike, 

That wipes away your smile ; 
Nor the socks of sister's 

That raise the blooming blisters ; 
It's the last, long mile. 

Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag 

And smile, smile, smile. 
When you've a lucifer to light your fag, 

Smile, boys, that's the style. 
What's the use of worrying? 

It never was worth while, so 
60 



A SONG CONTEST 

Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag 
And smile, smile, smile. 
Oh K-k-katie, beautiful K-k-katie 
You're the only girl in all the world that I adore ! 
When the moon shines o'er the c-cow shed 
I'll be waiting for you at the k-k-kitchen door. 
Good morning, Mr. Zip, Zip, Zip, 
With your hair cut just as short as mine. 
Good morning, Mr. Zip, Zip, Zip, 
You're surely looking fine. 
Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust, 
If the Camels don't get you, the Fatimas must. 
Good morning, Mr. Zip, Zip, Zip, 
With your hair cut just as short as, 
Your hair cut just as short as 
Your hair cut just as short as mine. 
Over there, over there. 

Send the word, send the word over there, 
That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming, 

The drums rum-tumming everywhere. 
So prepare, say a prayer, 

Send the word, send the word to beware. 
We'll be over, we're coming over, 
And we won't come back 
Till it's over over there. 
Keep your head down Allemand, 
Keep your head down Allemand, 
Last night in the pale moonlight 
We saw you, we saw you. 
You were mending your broken wire 
As we opened with rapid fire. 
If you want to see your Vater in the Vaterland 
Keep your head down Allemand. 

Where do we go from here, boys ; 
Where do we go from here ? 
Slip a pill to Kaiser Bill 

And make him shed a tear — 
And when we see the enemy 

We'll shoot them in the rear. 
Oh joy, oh boy, 

Where do we go from here? 
Way down upon the Suwanee River, far, far away. 

There's where my heart is turning ever. 
There's where the old folks stay. 

All up and down the whole creation, sadly I roam, 
Still longing for the old plantation. 

And for the old folks at home. 
All the world am sad and dreary, everywhere I roam. 

61 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

( )li, darkies, how my heart grows weary. 
Far from the old folks at home. 

An amphitheater was built for the singers. Each team single- 
filed to position filling the top row first, and sang the score 
without pause or intermission. Military behavior evidently 
counted five, volume two, speed two, and rhythm, melody and 
consonance a third each. The engineers won easily on the first 
three counts. 

In the daily schedule singing came early, but each day was 
perfected with an hour of play; compulsory play where you had 
to, although you were not of a playful disposition, or were tempo- 
rily indisposed. It was rough and fast, in keeping witli the great 
for which we were training, and if anybod) was hurt it was 
"in line of duty in time of war," and he was expendible anyway. 
Following athletics so quickly that there was scant time in which 
to dress and fall in under arms, came retreat and battalion or 
regimental parade. Once in review at quick time and around 
again at double time with no intermission, hut generally a call- 
down by the colonel afterwards for no1 dressing your company 
properly, or for doing "officers center" improperly, or for nol 
saluting at eyes right according to orders, etc. The change from 
quick to double time frequently put the men out to step and broke 
the alignments, for which the company commanders blamed the 
band in general and the bass drummer in particular. 

Sergeant Kleesatelle was the bass-drum artist, and a good one, 
but Captain Kelly was called for leading his company around 
"like a flock of sheep" and decided it was Kleesatelle's fault. 

"Do you know what double time is?" he demanded of the ser- 
geant after review. 

"Yes, sir, 180 steps to the minute, thirty-six inches each !" 

"Well let me see you do it!" and he had another n. c. o. hold 
a watch for an hour and count steps while Kleesatelle double- 
timed back and forth in front of company headquarters beating 
his bass drum. 

That eyes right and hand salute in passing the colonel got me 
and several others into trouble. The colonel declared he would 
make me do it right or kill me. and as I wanted to die on the 
fields of France rather than the parade ground of Sherman, I 
tried my best. But after I had it to suit him. Captain Wildish, 
upon being openly corrected in conference, excused himself by 

62 



REGULATING THE ARM SWING 



saying he was following instructions on page 163 of the L D. R. 
and the colonel who had overlooked that page announced after 
reading it that we would do eyes right according to drill regula- 
tion thereafter. I give the colonel credit for being compromising 
enough generally to give in to I. D. R. 

Section 62 of the last named publication directs the march at 
quick time and briefly states "The arms swing naturally." 
Whether they swing four, six or any prescribed number of inches 
is not stated, but the colonel conceived that his soldiers were giv- 
ing their arms too much lost motion. As a preliminary to reform 
he would stop all movement, then, from a habil of nothing he 
could go to four or six inches, or, like humanely cutting off a 
dog's tail an inch at a lime, could let out the swing gradually until 
be gol it just where he wanted it. At any rate the order came to 
keep the hands quiet and thumbs on the seams of the trousers. 
This caused discontent, 
because it was unnatural 
and awkward. I hit it 
gave the regimen! a 
distinctive, if not a dis- 
tinguished, appearance 
which made the dough- 
boys smile when they 
saw us coming. 

The colonel was in- 
flexible. "Lieutenant 
Minturn!" he yelled more than once, "did you see that fourth rear 
man in the second squad swinging his hands?" 

"No sir, I didn't." 

"Well, what are you there for? I want you to keep your eyes 
open and see what's going on. Punish him and report it to me." 

As habit for unnatural things is hard to acquire this one was 
slow in forming and the order against swinging the arms so far 
as I know was never revoked. 




THR DOUGHBOYS SUITED WHEN THEY 
HAW US COMING 



63 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



CHAPTER IX 



LIFE WITH THE ENGINEERS 



The engineers were busy in the fall and winter of 1917-18. 
Before the heavy snows and zero weather of that unprecedented 
winter prevented, they hiked the seven miles to the rifle range for 
daily practice-shooting, or longer distances on surveying and 
pole-cutting details. Hundreds of them were busy with the more 
enjoyable outdoor tasks of staking off miles of trenches in a large 
area south of Preston road and bossing the infantrymen who were 
detailed in daily lots of three or four thousands from other regi- 
ments to do the manual labor. Bossing the job, our commander 
insisted, was the true sphere of the engineer. When other sol- 
diers were available they were required to do the work, but at 
other times and particularly in our own area, our enlisted men 
were taught the dignity of labor and how to become good 
"straw bosses" by being bossed themselves. "Make it snappy" was 
the slogan. Frequent orders came for large numbers of our men 
to go as replacement troops to other divisions under orders for 
immediate overseas service. The temptation was to get rid of our 
least desirable ones — the dead wood. Our commander cautioned 
"Play the game, gentlemen — play it fair! Don't send all your 
worst men — and I think I needn't caution you not to send all of 
your best." I noticed the stupidest in my classes and many with 
unpronouncable names from East Chicago, Gary and northern 
Indiana disappeared first. 

By March, 1918, we were depleted to one-third of our allowed 
strength under the new organization rules of 250 men per com- 
pany. But the remnant were magnificent fellows mentally and 
physically, trained by the months of camp life until they could 
stand anything. Coincident with the spring rains came crowds 
of new men. Captain Hess had been busy as personnel officer 
with the qualification cards of the depot brigades until the right 
of selection was denied there. Then he toured Indiana and with 

64 



BREAKING IN RAW RECRUITS 

the aid of Captain Dynes at Indianapolis and other specialists our 
ranks began to fill again with very good material. An excellent 
regimental band was one result of this selection and some good 
art-talent came to my department. Captain Hess always had the 
camouflage section in mind. 

These new men had to be taught to shoot, to drill, and to be 
all-around pioneer engineer soldiers, which means much indeed 
from construction to demolition of rail and wagon roads; 
ponton, truss and other bridges ; barracks, water-works and sew- 
age plants. How to survey and map a country, to lay out field 
fortifications, superintend sapping and mining operations, to tie 
the clove hitch, bowline and fifty-seven more kinds of knots than 
a sailor knows ; do all that others do and what nobody else can 
and incidentally camouflage the rest of the army from the enemy. 
For themselves, they haven't time to take cover. 




A FRENCH GUN CAMOUFLAGED WITH CHICKEN WIRE SCREEN 

We were in hopes of early overseas orders for the Eighty- 
fourth division so there was no waiting for good weather and the 
hardships of army life must have been real indeed to those men 
who came to us that spring soft and new. A glimpse from their 
side may be had in the following letter from my friend, Will 
Forsyth, which was written on behalf of one of them. First, you 
will note how he bewails his own misfortune in not being able to 
get into the same discomforts of the army. How perverse is 
human nature. 

" I congratulate you heartily and say 'go on — go to it!' 

65 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

and keep it up. Nevertheless, mixed with my exaltation over 
what you have done and are doing is a feeling of downright envy. 
For I must stay at home and can do nothing. Confound the luck ! 
What is subscribing for bonds, etc., etc., etc., and gardening to 
service there? I can't reconcile myself to any other view than 
that it falls far short of what one ought to do. I can't help but 
feel humiliated — though it is no fault of mine. 

"Of course I wanted to congratulate you and compliment you 
on your service, but there is a more urgent cause for this letter 
and it is this : Among the art school boys who have recently en- 
listed is a certain Earl W. Bott, as soft as mush physically, a 
mother's boy and all that, but he enlisted ; partly my fault, for the 
musicians' corps, was accepted and assigned to the Three Hun- 
dred and Ninth engineers, your regiment. He has been gone about 
ten days or two weeks, and I have a letter from him describing 
his life. It seems that when a softy is assigned to an old regi- 
ment like yours, he doesn't get the gradual hardening-up training 
that the drafted rookies get, but is plunged right into the thick of 
things before he gets his breath. The consequences are that 
being unprepared, it gets their goat and knocks them out. 

"Bott never marched in the rain for seven miles without a 
raincoat or umbrella, and I doubt whether he ever walked that far 
at one stretch in his life; never handled a gun; never had one in 
his hands before ; never shoveled coal or hauled sod or did any 
of those things before, and now he has to do all of them, all at 
once ; but the funny part is that he's game. He don't complain a 
bit, and he wants to stay in and is scared to death for fear they 
will fire him ; all the more so for the reason that there is a sur- 
plusage of fellows who play the particular instrument that he 
does. He's afraid because he's soft that he'll have to go if any- 
body does. It is such an astonishing surprise to me that I am 
urged to write this plea to you. It so happens that Bott is a 
lithographer ; a good one, and gave up a fine position to enlist. 
Learned to play the saxophone so that he could pass as a musician, 
never hoping that they'd take him as a soldier. His desire to stay 
in and the way he takes his medicine is almost pathetic, it is so in 
contrast to everything expected of him. So I thought that I'd 
write to you, asking you to look him up and keep track of him. 
and if he is in danger of being fired from the musicians he might 
be useful, even a find for the 'camouflage' department. I'm sure 

66 



THE NIGHT SERVICE OFFICER 

you could use him if there is any opening, and since he has de- 
veloped so much spunk and wants to stay in so bad, I'm sure 
Uncle Samuel can make a man of him. He needs the army like 
thousands of others as much perhaps as the army needs them, and 
we don't want to lose a man if we can help it. I'm not so much 
interested in Bott as a person, as I'm anxious to help the United 
States to another soldier — hence this letter. 

"We are now quite stripped of boys at the school. Every able- 
bodied boy of enlisting age that we have had in the last three or 
four years is in, and out of the lot only one drafted man. , Some 
score, eh, for an art school ? It's about the only thing I've got to 
be proud of. I don't know how much I'm guilty of this, but I'm 
accessary to it anyway, and have left no word unsaid to help the 
thing along. There is another boy recently gone to your camp 
from here, Malcom Gregory, who might also be of use to you as 
a camoufleur, but I'll stop now as this is enough to inflict on you 
at one time. 

"Yours sincerely, 

"W. Forsyth." 



The night of the day when this letter came I was on as night 
service officer. This official must be present at regimental head- 
quarters every minute of the time from retreat until he is relieved 
at 8:30 the next morning. He must have an orderly bring his 
bed-roll so he can sleep there, 
and also bring him his meals ; 
but as it excused him from the 
irksomeness of attending "con- 
ference" the duty was not un- 
welcome save when it inter- 
fered with town-leave. He 
gave attention to emergency 
orders and had a sentinel al- 
ways at his disposal. Some- 
time during his tour of duty — 
it might be early or it might be 
late — he was sure to be called 
to the telephone to receive a 
code message originating at division headquarters and to be re- 
turned there without distortion after passing through a score or 

67 




PRIVATE BOTT REPORTS TO 

THE LIEUTENANT!" 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

more like himself. It was a test of ability to handle code mes- 
sages, which were meaningless to us and ran like this: 

P— S— A— T— B— L. 

N— K— Y— O— D— I. 

R_M— V— C— G— H. 

etc., etc. 

Letters like P— T — B — C — G — or like A — J — K, and others 
sound so much alike that we had to say P, as in pig ; T, as in top ; 
B, as in boy ; C, as in cat ; G, as in gun ; A, as in axe ; J, as in 
John ; K, as in kid, and so on. 

I had sent for Bott and was in the midst of one of these sense- 
less jangles when he appeared. He was a frail, spindling young- 
ster, who limped badly in both feet, which evidently hurt him, as 
he tried to stand at attention, but my strange declarations over 
the telephone took his mind off his misery. As soon as he had the 
opportunity he told me he had bad blisters on his feet from march- 
ing to the rifle range, and the doctor didn't do much for him 
except put him on light ditty, cleaning out stables and mopping 
the kitchen and dining room, and he hoped that his feet would 
soon be well enough for him to return to heavy duty, which in his 
opinion, was a whole lot easier than the kind the doctor had pre- 
scribed. Bott, I observed, had a sense of humor; he made him- 
self useful with brush and pen and went to France and came 
back with his regiment. While abroad he was official illustrator 
of the history of D company, which gave him excuse to go to 
Nantes every day or so for a brush or pen or bottle of ink — un- 
failing evidence that he developed into a good soldier — one who 
could use his head. 

The story is told of one of these new men in another organ- 
ization. He was on guard without having thoroughly learned his 
duties, and a certain colonel was addicted to inspections on his 
own account of the soldiers of the camp. General Hale had 
called attention to a lack of familiarity with insignia indicating 
rank and urged that attention be given to instruction in such 
matters. The insignia of a brigadier general is one star ; major 
general, two stars, and of a colonel, a spread eagle. The colonel 
of our story was halted somewhat awkwardly by*the sentinel and 
in reply to challenge said he was General Hale. Without further 
ceremony he advanced and displayed his silver eagle. 

68 



INSPECTING THE GUARD 

"It's the old bird, all right; you can pass," the sentinel de- 
cided, but didn't come to present arms. 

"Don't you know an eagle from a star, or how to salute an 
officer?" the colonel demanded. "Let me have that gun." and 
thinking he was to be instructed by an officer the sentinel handed 
his piece over in violation of the rule, that under no circum- 
stances will he yield his piece, except to persons provided for in 
his General Orders No. 6. The sentinel was minus his rifle when 
the next detail came to relieve him because the colonel took it with 
him as an object lesson. The sentinel was roundly censored, and 
duly punished and to see if he had learned his lesson, he was 
again approached a few weeks later while on guard. This time 




AN AEROPLANE PICTURE OP VERDUN. IN THE 
IS THE CATHEDRAL. 



[IDDLE BACKGROUND 



the challenge "Halt! who is there?" was disregarded, and the 
person challenged continued toward the sentinel. The challenge 
was repeated with the same result whereupon the sentinel brought 
his piece to aim and fired without any further warning. The 
range was too close for a miss, and he was obeying his instruc- 
tions, which read : "A sentinel will not permit any person to ap- 
proach so close as to prevent the proper use of his own weapon 
before recognizing the person or receiving the countersign." 

69 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

This story, whether true or not, illustrates a point of truth 
that the men of the new army were quick to learn ; they seldom 
made the same mistake twice and whenever a guard said "halt" 
to any of us, we didn't argue with him ; we halted, and did what- 
ever else he told us to do. 

The story also reminds me that one of my first assignments 
after attachment to the engineers was the preparation of an illus- 
trated bulletin of several pages, showing the insignia of rank of 
all persons in the armies of the United States, Great Britain, 
France and Germany, which was reproduced by zincography at 
the engineer plant and distributed to the Eighty-fourth division 
for instruction purposes. The compiling of this gave me a per- 
sonal acquaintance with British and French army officers at- 
tached to our division, and this led later to much practical 
information from them on the use of camouflage at the front. 

I often passed the guard house at Camp Taylor in going to and 
from the Engineer School, and my age and build apparently con- 
fused me in the minds of some of the new men with the command- 
ing officer. 

Special orders for sentinels say "between reveille and retreat 
to turn out the guard for all persons designated by the command- 
ing officer," etc., which, of course, includes the latter. It is the 
duty of the sentinel at the guard house — post No. i — to be on the 
alert for the approach of persons or parties entitled to this com- 
pliment and when he sees such he sings out, "Turn out the guard, 
commanding officer." 

The guard is divided into three parts known as reliefs, which 
go on duty for two hours each, and when the alarm is given by 
the sentinel to turn out the guard the two reliefs not on duty are 
generally asleep or lying down at rest in the guard house with 
their equipment off. They must jump quickly to get ready and 
in formation outside in time to give the honors. 

More than once I was mistaken for the commanding officer 
and had my vanity tickled by orders to turn out the guard. I 
gleefully told Colonel Bain about it, but he couldn't see the joke 
if a second lieuey allowed the guard to be actually turned out for 
him, and severely asked: 

"What did you do, let them turn out ?" 

"Oh, no!" I relieved him, "I saluted and said, 'never mind 
70 



EASY TO GET IN THE GUARD-HOUSE 

the guard.' " And the colonel then thought it was real funny and 
laughed about it too. 

Every day at n a. m. the commanding officers of the several 
division units met General Hale at his headquarters and received 
his orders for camp discipline, etc,, verbally. At 1 1 130 our bugles 
sounded officers' call and our colonel verbally gave us the division 
orders with additions of his own, which were all passed on by the 
company commanders to their men. It was Adjutant Merrick's 
business to keep full notes and everybody's to remember and 
obey ; any soldier, high or low, was S. O. L. in that organization 
who failed. If he forgot, or said he didn't know, Captain Mer- 
rick would put his finger on the order, reams deep in the bale of 
notes though it might be, and the excuse was thereafter void. 
Hence it was real easy to get in the guard house as a prisoner and 
for such, life was purposely made bleak and thorny to distinguish 
that institution from the hospital as a rest-cure. 

All smokes and reading, even to love letters, were barred, but 
letters from a prisoner's wife or mother were opened and read 
to him by the sergeant of the guard, or would be kept until bis 
term ended. All eats were eliminated save such rations as were 
sent over by their company cooks, which grew cold waiting for 
the O. D. to inspect them, and throw out sweets and all sugges- 
tions of dessert. What was left must be eaten standing, and 
travel to and from latrines was ordered at double time, urged on 
by the persuasive bayonet of an accompanying guard. Here was 
an institution, too, where labor was recognized and insisted on ; 
but the hours for work and rest of the standard union labor day 
were nearly reversed. 

While I sent several men to the guard house by direction of 
my superiors in particular cases, I only recall one where I did it 
on my own initiative. We prided ourselves in F company on 
ability to discipline our men by company punishment — generally 
by denying some privilege — without resorting to court-martial 
and guard-house methods, which left black marks on the soldier's 
service record. In the case referred to I had been detailed as 
mess officer of the Officers' Mess. Civilian cooks had been em- 
ployed until just previous to my tour of duty, but army cooks 
were then doing the work. A cook in the army is of higher rank 
than a private and gets ten dollars more pay a month. I had no 
more than taken charge when the first cook asked me for more 

71 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

pay. I took it up with the Mess Council, who said "no", the man 
was a soldier and must be content with the pay of his rank. On 
the Wednesday when I conveyed the ultimatum to the first cook 
he went to Louisville to order supplies as he had been doing, but 
failed to report back until the following Sunday night. When 
asked for an explanation he said he felt so badly over the refusal 
to raise his wages that he took a drink too many with a friend 
and forgot he was in the army. This A. W. O. L. could not be 
overlooked, as I told him, and the outcome was that he lost his 
extra pay and privileges as a cook, was fined $15 and sentenced to 
two weeks in the guard-house by order of the summary court. 
But soldiers could not be detailed as waiters in a mess like ours 
against their will. They could be hired if they were willing, but 
money was no inducement in the Three Hundred and Ninth. 
Our fellows said they didn't join the army for that kind of serv- 
ice, and we had to hire civilian colored boys. 

The job as mess officer is as unpopular as that of mess ser- 
geant. It was wished on me and luckily taken away by my 
request before I entirely lost standing in the regiment. 1 suc- 
ceeded in bringing the monthly charge per officer down from $33 
to $27, including a wedding present and a couple of cups. 

A story is told on the men who were training in bayonet exer- 
cise after the signing of the Armistice. All interest had abated ; 
the instructors vainly endeavored to put pep into the class by 
fiercely ordering them to jab the sacks stuffed with hay: "Go 
after them ! treat 'em rough ! they're dirty Huns ! give it to them !" 
etc., but nothing doing until this happy thought occurred: the 
sacks were mess sergeants. 

When one suggested it the boys came to life with a snap and 
jabbed the sacks nearly to destruction before the drill-masters 
could stop them. 

Most of my experiences with the engineers seem to cluster 
around the mess hall. That is because it was the only place where 
we could comfortably be seated in a body, and it was in many 
respects our home. The building, finished a short while after I 
was attached to the organization, was a long, narrow frame with 
the kitchen at one end and a large open fireplace at the other, 
where the yule-log and various others gave out a continuous 

72 



MRS. BAIN TAKES EXCEPTIONS 




THE LATE COL. WILLIAM 

GUTHRIE OF THE 309th 

ENGINEERS 



cheer. The tables were in two long 
rows, joined by one across at the end 
toward the fireplace, where the colonel 
and his staff sat. 

The housewarming was a big 
Thanksgiving-night dance, the lavish 
autumn decorations for which long re- 
mained to cover the exposed rafters 
and to decorate the walls. I remember 
well, because I was detailed to make 
pictures and cartoons for the occa- 
sion, and was so prolific that the hang- 
ing committee was at their wits' end 
to find wall space enough in that fifty- 
foot long room, and also because I 
was publicly complimented by Colonel 
Guthrie, which helped in making me 
acquainted and more at ease in my new 
environment. 

The colonel told me in advance that I might go the limit on 
cartoons. One showed him lecturing on the army rifle and 
Lieutenant Colonel Bain, quite bald, in the audience. 

On the night of the dance Colonel Bain came across the floor 
and said his wife wanted to speak to me. When introduced she 
said: 

"Lieutenant Minturn, I want to talk to you about that cartoon 
of Colonel Bain, — it isn't fair to him." 

I felt guilty, but there were so many grounds for condemna- 
tion that I sparred by asking: 

"In what way is it unfair, Mrs. Bain?" 

"Oh, his hair — you only show two hairs, and he has five ! 
You not only do him an injustice, but you discourage him and I'm 
afraid he'll quit using Herpicide altogether !" 

Each day after the evening meal we had Officers' School, 
officially spoken of as a conference, lasting from one to three 
hours. Two large maps, fully ten feet square, one of Gettysburg 
battlefield and vicinity, and the other of France and the war zone 
were always available near the fireplace toward which we grouped 
our chairs. There Colonel Guthrie, a man of extraordinary intel- 

73 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

lect and expression, gave inimitable talks on military topics, or 
we listened to experiences by officers who had been overseas. 
The colonel firmly believed that trench warfare, as then waged, 
would lead to no conclusion and that open warfare alone could 
give a decision. Hence his insistance on the study of maneuver, 
that we be ready when the time came. Officers were successively 
detailed to read up and discuss the events of the day and to peg off 
the front line changes on the war map. The colonel figured out 
the ballistics of "Big Bertha" to show how possible but of what 
little practical value the big gun was, and he explained the numer- 
ous pamphlets issued almost daily on the new methods of this 
war, but the serious work centered around a treatise on Technique 
of Modern Tactics, by Bond and McDonough, and after we were 
supposed to have mastered that and had reviewed I. D. R. and 
F. S. R. we were given army maneuver problems on the Gettys- 
burg map to solve. 

To men who were tired out by a long and hard day those night 
conferences were often more than tedious. On one occasion in 
midwinter — the snows were deep, I know, and my day had been 
particularly tiresome — the colonel talked until after 10 o'clock. 
I was crossing the company street behind Lieutenant Kelly after 
dismissal and remarked to him : 

"These conferences after dinner are getting to be like regular 
banquets, aren't they ?" 

"Yes," he agreed, thinking I was in a complimentary mood, 
and I corrected him by adding : 
"I mean long drawn out !" 

"Hush!" he whispered, "the colonel's just ahead of us and 
heard you." 

So he was, and just then turned off in the dark to his own 
quarters, and if he heard I was hopeful that he was unable to 
recognize in the night. Perhaps he did not know the speaker, but 
whoever he was he got back at him next day at officers' call in 
this wise : 

"Last night I overheard a remark, which if intended for my 
ears, was very unkind and not manly. No doubt I am tedious, 
but I do the best I know how and I would think far more of those 
who criticize if they came to me openly and above board." 

I felt like thirty cents, and told Lieutenant Kelly that I was 
going to apologize, but he advised : 

74 



FUNERAL OF COLONEL GUTHRIE 




"What's the use stirring it up again? The colonel's got it 
out of his system now, and you'll only make him feel worse by 
bringing it fresh to his mind." 

I am making fine progress in the army, I thought to myself. 
I offended Colonel Bain by that cartoon and now have offended 
Colonel Guthrie with my wagging tongue, and if I remain a sec- 
ond lieutenant for the duration of the war it will only serve me 
right. 

Colonel Guthrie died 
early in April, 1918, 
from trouble largely con- 
tributed to by overwork 
for the regiment. His 
body was taken to West 
Point Militarv Academy 
for burial, but we gave the funeral of colonel guthrie 

him military honors. I can see the cortege moving slowly to the 
muffled music of the band, which he had so enthusiastically 
organized, his horse with boots and saber hanging from the 
empty saddle led behind a caisson drawn by four black horses, 
bearing the casket on which the colors for which he died, were 
draped. 

Thus passed a brave, just soldier, whose life was a sacrifice to 
duty, long before his time, as all who knew him felt. The follow- 
ing tribute is from a letter to the widow, dictated by General Hale : 

"Colonel Guthrie was one of the most able and efficient offi- 
cers, not only in this division, but in the army. Loyalty, cheerful- 
ness and efficiency were ever his creed. 'Duty, honor, country,' 
the motto of his beloved Alma Mater was always his watchword. 

"The commanding general appreciates to the highest degree 
the earnest and untiring efforts of Colonel Guthrie to the organ- 
ization and training of his regiment, and it is his belief that in so 
doing, Colonel Guthrie's unceasing energy in that direction really 
underminded his health and hastened his death." 



75 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



CHAPTER X 

TRAINING IN MINOR TACTICS AND EQUITATION 

The pace was a killing one, and we had to take it. Lieuten- 
ant Colonel Bain was made a full colonel and commanding offi- 
cer of the regiment. Instead of lecturing to his subordinates he 
made them do the work and every officer — doctor, preacher, and 
quartermaster included had to solve innumerable problems in 
minor tactics — reconnaissance, patroling, security, attack, de- 
fense, convoying, withdrawal from action, holding engagements 
and specialties in engineering, on the Gettysburg map, of which 
the following are but samples : 

Map Problem No. 3 — Security 

General Situation : 

The Susquehanna River forms the boundry between two 
nations at war. The Reds are crossing the river in force with 
strong detachments of cavalry reconnoitering toward Gettysburg. 
Blue forces are being moved forward to oppose the Red advance. 
Special Situation : 

The First Blue division which had nearly completed detrain- 
ing at Gettysburg on October 8, 1914, sent forward to New 
Oxford the Fourth infantry and Troop A, Second Cavalry, under 
Colonel B., with orders to secure and hold the crossing over the 
Little Conowago (South Branch) at Diehls Mill. Colonel B. 
designated the First Battalion and Troop A. to form advance 
guard under command of Major A. 

When the head of the advance guard reserve reached 584 
crossroads, one-half mile east of Brush Run Station, a trooper 
from the advance cavalry delivered the following message : 

Adv. Cavalry, New Oxford, 
8 Oct., 1914, 9:45 a. m. 
Major A. : 

Hostile cavalry regiment approaching from the southeast. I 
have fallen back to this point without resistance. Citizens here 
say positively that a considerable force of Red infantry camped 
last night near Spring Grove. 

O. 
Capt. 2d Cav. 
76 



PROBLEM IN MINOR TACTICS 

When Major A. finished reading the above message his staff 
pointed out an approaching column of cavalry whose head was 
about 1,000 yards east of Hetrick farmhouse. It was now 9:15 
a. m. Looking back at the main body Major A. saw that the 
regiment had halted with its head at the point where the Western 
Maryland Railway crosses York Pike ; the men were falling out 
for the hourly halt. The advance guard had not yet halted. 

The Little Conowago (South Branch) is about fifty yards 
wide, three feet deep with muddy bottom and overhanging banks. 
The Western Maryland Railway is intact to a point some dis- 
tance east of New Oxford. 

Required : 

1. Brief statement of Major A.'s disposition at 9:51 a. m. 

2. Major A.'s estimate of the situation. 

3. His orders (exactly as given). 

Map Problem No. 4 — Infantry Combat 

General Situation : 

An eastern army in hostile country is engaging a western 
army along the general line Biglerville — Goldenville — hill — 527 — 
hill 618 — Wolf Hill. Both armies are extending their lines south 
along Rock Creek. 
Special Situation : 

The First Eastern Division is attacking along the Hanover 
Road, its front extending north half-way to the York Turnpike, 
and south half-way to the Baltimore Turnpike. 

On the morning of October 20 the First brigade, north of the 
Hanover Turnpike, and the Second brigade, south of the Hanover 
Road, succeeded in forcing the enemy off the high ground just 
west of White Run and in keeping possession in spite of heavy 
counter attacks during the afternoon. 

A night attack made by the enemy at 1 1 p. m. drove the First 
brigade back to White Run, but the brigade commander, re-in- 
forced by a regiment of the Third brigade, succeeded in recap- 
turing this high ground at daylight and in pushing his line for- 
ward to knoll 606 and the ridge extending south from that knoll 
to Hanover Road. South of the Hanover Road the Second bri- 
gade had maintained its position west of White Run during the 
night in spite of hostile night attacks and in the morning had 
attempted to join in the advance of the First brigade to the ridge 
south of knoll 606, but as adjoining troops on the south had been 
unable to hold their position west of White Run the Second bri- 
gade had, at 9 a. m. been compelled to fall back to the ridge 
extending from roadfork 546 to orchard northwest of roadfork 
452. 
Situation at 9 a. m. October 21. 

North of the First brigade the Sixth brigade, Second division, 

77 




THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

occupies the crescent-shaped knoll west and south of roadfork 
587. The First brigade occupies, with the Third Infantry and 
the attached Seventh Infantry, the line, 606, 
inclusive, south to Hanover Road. The First 
Infantry and Second Infantry, which suffered 
severely during the day and night of the twen- 
tieth, have been sent back to Dutch Road to 
rest. The remaining regiments of the Third 
brigade have been posted ; the Eighth at Han- 
over Road crossing of White Run, the Ninth 
at orchard northeast of Storrick, as reserves 
for the Second and First brigades, respect- 
ively. The artillery is in position east of White 
Run. 

chaplain mil- At this time the First brigade commander, 

LE ?o A solve AD having ridden to the Ninth Infantry and con- 

problems suited with the regimental commander, gives 

the following order to Major A., commanding First battalion, 

Ninth Infantry. 

Orders of the Brigade Commander: 

"Our advance line is suffering severely from infantry and 
machine gun fire from the woods to the west and from artillery 
fire evidently from Benner's Hill. Our troops on knoll 606 are 
under close fire from troops in sunken road by Rocky Grove 
school house, and machine guns posted on knoll 612 which stops 
their further advance. 

"With your battalion and the machine gun company of your 
regiment, which the regimental commander will place at your 
disposal, advance north and then west up this draw and capture 
and hold knoll 612 as a supporting point for the advance along 
the whole line. 

"The Eighteenth Infantry (Sixth brigade) holds edge of 
woods on north slope of knoll 606. Your advance will be between 
those two woods. Our artillery east of White Run will support 
you. Lieutenant X. (artillery) will accompany you as agent of 
communication. 

"The enemy's effective aeroplane reconnaissance makes it 
necessary for you to advance in a formation to avoid loss from 
hostile artillery on Benner's Hill. 

"The remainder of your regiment is needed here and cannot 
support you." 

Required : 

1. Estimate of the situation. 

2. All orders and messages of Major A. 

3. Disposition for holding knoll 612 if captured. 

In some of the problems there was a Sergeant Hill, who was 
78 



PROBLEMS IN MILITARY ENGINEERING 

put in various trying situations that were immortalized In song 
by the student-officers, of which I recall the two following 
verses : 

It's situation Number One ; 
Said Sergeant Hill — "Look out for fun 
And see the Reds begin to dance 
When I shall shoot them in the pants. 

It's situation Number Two ; 
Oh, Sergeant Hill, what will you do? 
"I'll drop my pack and throw my gun — 
And then for cover, run, run, run !" 

As the spring weather permitted, the Red and Blue forces 
moved off the Gettysburg map to the real terrain in the vicinity 
of Camp Taylor and Louisville, and we had problems in railroad 
repair and the movement of our own regiment and division. On 
several occasions at Camp Sherman, we were loaded into trucks — 
sometimes taking our suppers with us for an early start — and 
unloaded at unexpected places miles away, where mimeographed 
details of friendly and enemy troops and their location near where 
we had stopped were supplied, and we were required in thirty 
minutes or less to estimate the situation and write the orders we 
should give, were we in actual command under the conditions 
named. 

When the time was up our answers were collected, we were 
ordered again into the trucks and taken further miles into the 
country to new positions to which the same army had advanced, 
or been driven, and the problem there presented had to be worked 
out to fit the new location. After this was several times repeated 
we returned to the camp where our solutions were criticized and 
our errors exposed. All this was interesting but difficult, as it 
touched every phase of military knowledge, and taxed all and 
overtaxed many of us. 

Did you ever look at a horse and realize what an agent for 
giving misery and pain to human beings he might be made ? 

To ride a horse in a normal way is a pleasure, but to take 
equitation in the army with its "monkey drills" and bull pen meth- 
ods as we had it, was not. 

79 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

I cannot look at a circus horse rider any more without pitying 
him as I do trained dogs, seals, and other animals that have been 
tortured and frightened into their efficiency. 

Think of a fellow so stiff that somebody must give him a leg 
when he mounts, being required to jump off and on a moving- 
animal without a saddle, and on an empty stomach, for equitation 
came right after reveille and before breakfast. Think of him 
folding his arms and leaning back until his shoulders rest on the 
posterior end of the animal, which generally kicked up at the 
contact, and then being ordered to "hold both legs straight against 
the horse's neck !" Think of him being ordered to reverse his 
seat and face the tail with the animal at a trot ; then go on around. 
Think of his swinging his left arm in vertical circles and his right 
at the same time horizontally in half circles and following his 
right hand continuously with his eyes, then while both amis are 
going as above, raising both feet until the legs to the knees are 
parallel with the ground, and a lot more vulgarly known as 
monkey drills. And while the troop strung out singly in a wide 
circle are doing this, suppose your spine is freezing with a fear 
that you will be the unlucky one to go next into the bull pen; an 
institution of torture so close at hand that the periphery of the 
circle you are racing around almost touches it, and into which 
the officers doing the monkey drill until their turn comes, know 
they must each go. 

We were very curious about the bull pen while the enlisted 
men were building it, and wondered what it was for. One or two 
of us thought it was to break some of the wild horses in that we 
had to ride. The patriotic fanners, who sacrificed horses to their 
Government evidently believed the time opportune to get rid of 
those that would do the loop and tail-spin like an aeroplane ; oth- 
ers of us thought it was a corral for some of our fractious pack- 
mules. It was an oval track a little larger than a circus ring, 
enclosed on both sides by a twelve-foot fence. In it four horses 
were turned loose, without bridle, saddle, or anything on but their 
hair. Four officers at a time were called from their "monkey 
drill" and assisted to mount the horses. The animals were then 
urged into a run and at the quarter stretches a man with a whip 
would spring out and yell and whip them. Sometimes a fright- 
cued animal would wheel and run back or try to jump through 

80 



THE BULL PEN AT SHERMAN 

the fence, and the equally frightened officer would lean over to 
grasp the neck or mane. 




EM S 



THE BULL PEN. A CARTOON BY WOLPORD M. EBERLY OF COMPANY F. 

REPRODUCED FROM THE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF COMPANY F, 309th 

ENGINEERS. By Permission. 

Then Colonel Bain, who was one of the men with a whip, 
would yell, "Lean back! fold your arms! let go of that mane!" 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

It was great fun for him and for the regiments of doughboys, who 
jeered and shouted as they marched past on their way to the 
rifle range. 

Some of the good riders among us, Mazeppa-like, were able 
to stay on, but most of the officers fell off or were thrown or 
raked off, and many were injured. In one morning four were so 
seriously hurt that they were taken to the base hospital, and the 
doctors there began to inquire what kind of a lunatic asylum we 
were trying to run. Those four referred to were Captain Kelly, 
injured spine; Lieutenant Helfrich, jaw bones broken, and Lieu- 
tenants Harwood and Shogrou, hurt in hip and back. The latter, 
a brave, husky lad, was heard to say that equitation in the army 
had taught him to fear and hate the sight of a horse, and others 
were brought to much the same feeling by the needlessly severe 
and eccentric training - . 

The ladies, "God bless 'em," rubbed it in here harder than 
they probably knew. The wives of the married officers came to 
Chillicothe to be with their husbands all they could before the 
daily-expected orders to leave for France. In the early days of 
Camp Taylor the ladies generally honored us with their presence 
at our table on Saturday evenings and Sundays, which were leave 
periods for all who were not being disciplined or were not on 
guard or other special duty. The ladies enjoyed the novelty as 
much as we did their presence, but this was stopped by an order 
of General Hale, forbidding the entrance of women into buildings 
of the camp. Said order was intended to apply to sleeping quar- 
ters, and was generally so construed and applied except by the 
engineers, who, with their usual severity took no chances of a 
"skin" by adopting the harshest construction and barred the 
women from the mess halls as well. When General Hale an- 
nounced that orders of Taylor applied at Sherman, where appli- 
cable, the enforcement of the one excluding women from our mess 
was continued. At last the desire was so strong that Colonel 
Bain requested special permission for the wives to eat with us 
and was informed that the general's order was never intended to 
prohibit it. 

So the word was sent around that they might come, and the 
colonel, a practical joker in his way, thought to have a little fun at 
their expense by having a sentinel posted to turn them back at 

82 



THE LADIES SING ABOUT OUR BULL PEN 

first. My wife and Mrs Gabbart were crossing the drill field 
from the Community House and were halted by a guard : 

"Ladies are not allowed here ; you'll have to go back !" he 
ordered. 

"But we have permission from Colonel Bain," they insisted 
without stopping. 

"Can't help that, my orders are from General Hale, and I'll 
have to arrest you for disobedience and impertinence." He 
started them off toward the guard-house, which was just beyond 
the mess-hall. Near the latter he was halted by the colonel, who 
severely inquired what the matter was, then gave the ladies the 
laugh, led them in and seated them at his table where Mrs. Bain 
and others were waiting. 

After dinner the colonel announced that our guests had pre- 
pared a little entertainment in appreciation of the privilege they 
were enjoying, and without further ceremony the fair ones sang 
the following parody, which we overheard them say to each other, 
was in the key of B. flat. It flattened us all right : 

Build a bull pen, Engineers, 

Build a bull pen, Engineers ; 

Stript bare of everything but hair 

Turn horses, loose horses, 

Then mount and try to ride 

With this music by your side — 

"Lean back ! to me you ride in a way that doesn't count 

Like learning to dismount, Engineers !" 

Move your bull pen, Engineers, 

Move your bull pen, Engineers ; 

At dawn, we were looking on, 

We saw you, we saw you, 

You were riding your horses' ears 

Which caused us to shed some tears. 

If you want to keep a secret from your loving wives 

Move your bull pen, Engineers. 

In the bull pen, Engineers, 

In the bull pen, Engineers ; 

You can't stick — it makes us very sick 

To see you, to see you ! 

The trick is so very neat — 

All you do is to hold your seat, 

Just act sane — sit straight and loose the mane 

In the bull pen. Engineers. 

83 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Take your bull pen, Engineers, 

Take your bull pen, Engineers, 

T'other side, and teach 'em how to ride 

In Berlin, in Berlin ! 

Put every Fritz and Heine there 

Though they think it isn't fair — 

Make the Boche ride till he wears off all the hide 

In the bull pen, Engineers. 

This book is not a work of genius, but only an attempt by one 
of the millions of ordinary mortals to voice the emotions that 
recently controlled the average American, and to convey a civil- 
ian's impressions of army life to the great number of other 
civilians who have had no opportunity for first-hand knowledge of 
that which man practiced first and has earnestly studied since — 
the art of war. It may be defined as anything to win. It goes in 
circles and since the sanction of poison gas and flame it harks back 
in practice to the centuries before Christ. 

The game of minor tactics described in this chapter was taught 
to us but I fear it cannot be played according to the rules any 
longer because the important element of surprise has been elimi- 
nated by the airplane. The latter makes concealment more neces- 
sary and more difficult. The "bull-pen" must also become only a 
memory because cavalry will be useless, horseback riding too con- 
spicuous for safety and equitation a lost art. We will give some 
attention to the art of concealment now known as camouflage. 



84 



CAMOUFLAGE IN WAR 



CHAPTER XI 



CAMOUFLAGE IN WAR 



In the preceding pages I have given the reader an insight 
into the earnest, thorough, almost too severe discipline of the 
Three Hundred and Ninth engineers. When they were charged 
by their chief at Washington, in August, 191 7, with providing a 
technically trained personnel, and the special material required 
for camouflage, for the Eighty-fourth division, it will be cor- 
rectly surmised that the one selected to carry out the order had a 
real man's job. 

But in my ignorance I rushed gaily in where angels might 
have hesitated. Fortunately, while I knew nothing about the sub- 
ject, my superiors were very little ahead of me in their knowledge, 
My reports for a while remind me of a young acquaintance in civil 
life who started his business career as a solicitor of life insurance. 
When daily importuned as to> his success by his doting parent his 
answer was, "I've nothing to report but activity, mother.' ' 

About that time, the fall of 191 7, the leading magazines and 
journals were taking turns at publishing sensational articles on 
the subject : How a clever imitation of a dead German or a dead 
horse w r as substituted for the reality in No Man's Land and used 
as an observation post, or how the positions of Boche snipers 
were disclosed by decoying them into shooting at a painted 
papier machc head raised above our parapet on a stick ; how 
broken trees, logs, posts and even stones were replaced by hollow 
imitations which were hiding places, and the weird effects that 
razzle-dazzle crazy-patch colors on ships, aeroplanes, and cater- 
pillar tanks had on Heine and Fritz. Colonel Guthrie remarked 
that it was better than reading a dime novel when he was tired 
out and needed to relax, and he often made remarks that tended 
to ridicule the subject and detract from its real importance. This 
tendency of the old army men to belittle camouflage was because 
they did not know what all was meant by it, and also because they 

85 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



are trained to follow "regulations" and to regard anything not in 
regulations as clandestine. When Braddock marched against the 
Indians it was not in "regulations" to dodge and hide behind trees 



OU«W BATTER^ 




THE GUN EMPLACEMENT IS CAREFULLY CAMOU- 
FLAGED, WHILE THE ROAD, A-B, IS CARRIED OVER 
IT ON PAINTED CANVAS TO TRACKS LEADING TO 
A DUMMY BATTERY 

and rocks. Young George Washington urged him to fight In- 
dians as the Indians fought, but Braddock would not. and the 
result has gone down in history as Braddock's Defeat. 

Our earliest instructions from the War Department said : 

"Camouflage, as practiced in the present war, is a new devel- 
opment, which has been carried to a high point of efficiency and 
value, particularly by the French. 

"It embraces, at present, not only the concealment of every- 
thing used in military operations, trenches, gun emplacements, 
military trains, machines of all sorts, observation posts, even 
horses and men (snipers), but in making dummy-trenches, gun 
emplacements, bridges, etc. 

"It is of great value to conceal from observation any of the 
material of war, but this value is greatly increased if we, at the 
same time, can furnish the enemy with a dummy target concealed 
just enough to be discovered. For example, if the enemy ascer- 
tains the fire is coming from a concealed battery he will continue 
to observe and thoroughly search the terrain, while if in the imme- 
diate vicinity dummy guns and emplacements are partially 
concealed and fire simulated with smoke bombs, the chances for 
the life of the battery are greatly increased." 

I found afterwards it was only those who had not been at the 
front who spoke slightingly of camouflage ; that the closer one 
got to the fighting line in France the less he ridiculed it, and when 

86 



MILITARY CAMOUFLAGE REASONING 

he reached the place where real danger was, his voice was loud in 
calling for it. 

Of course, every man in the army, or who has been in it, be- 
lieves his particular branch of the service was paramount in its 
importance, and all others but contributory. The infantryman 
knows that he is the bone and sinew of the army ; the artilleryman, 
that but for his barrage and scientific work the infantry would be 
helpless and lost ; the quartermaster, that but for his supplies to 
both, their efforts would be in vain ; the engineers that they blaze 
the way for all to advance, and they alone furnish the roads, the 
bridges and the fortifications. The doctor has statistics to prove 
that but for him more men would die from disease than from bul- 
lets, and there are the aviators, the tank, the gas, and other 
important branches with weighty testimony to be heard. Every 
specialist in each branch of the service rightfully prides himself 
on his contribution or he would not be fit for his job ; but I think 
I can prove to any intelligent person with an open mind that 
camouflage is indispensable and has come to stay. 

Since the advent of gunpowder and other high explosives in 
warfare, there has been a great and protracted struggle for su- 
premacy between offensive weapons and defensive materials. 
This led to a general acceptance of the idea, for many years, that 
strong walls, to meet the assailants' missies, were among the prin- 
cipal objects to be attained. Hence the castles on high places and 
the walled and deeply moated cities of Europe. But an obstacle, 
however difficult, can never in itself be an effective bar to the 
passage of resolute men. The thick walls of stone and reinforced 
concrete of the supposedly impregnable forts that protected the 
frontier of Belgium, served only as burial-coverings for the de- 
fenders when the German army seriously challenged them with 
modern artillery in 1914. The main purpose of all field-fortifica- 
tions on last analysis, must be to place the assailants in an unfa- 
vorable situation for using their own weapons, and greatly expose 
them to those of the defenders. 

Thuillier, in his standard work, "Principles of Land Defense," 
has said : "In the present time, when the penetrative and destruc- 
tive effect of the projectiles has become so enormous, it has 
become a matter of great difficulty to find materials capable of 
resisting. It is therefore open to question whether it is not more 
expedient to so design the defensive works that the attackers 

87 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

would find it most difficult to see and range on them or to ob- 
serve the results of their fire, instead of burying the defenders 
under masses of steel and concrete. The end aimed at would be 
equallv well secured by the former method, as it would be very 
difficult for the attackers to secure an effective hit, while the 
great disadvantages of the latter method, namely, the hindrance 
of freedom of action and the difficulty of supervision and con- 
trol, would be avoided." 

This was written in 1902, and was based on the teachings of 
the Boer war. Speaking of the Boer, who had adopted the tac- 
tics of the American Indian to which Europe was as much a 
stranger as when Braddock went to his defeat, the above writer 
said in his closing chapter: "He (the Boer) argued that if he 
could make himself unseen, it was probable that even the most 
powerful gun would be unable to hit him. and that if while un- 
seen himself, he could find a cranny to fire his rifle through, he 
would be able, by the rapid fire of that weapon in the use of which 
he was an adept, to stay the advance of the well-disciplined, but 
unpracticed at cover-taking, British troops. His premises were 
more correct than ours." 

A RAILROAD CONCEALED BY A COVER OF CHICKEN 

WIRE AND RAFFIA. WHICH IS REMOVED WHILE A 

TRAIN IS PASSING 

The developments of the World war have demonstrated that 
no obstacle can be erected to resist modern projectiles and explo- 
sives. The French learning their lesson from the fate of Belgium 
removed their guns from the forts before the siege of Verdun 
and planted them in the hills, in places unknown to the enemy, 
where they used them under cover. This was camouflage, and 
the Germans did not pass. 

The aeroplane, as the far-seeing eye of the enemy, makes 
concealment, under the more general name of camouflage, a neces- 




MORE ABOUT CAMOUFLAGE 

cessity where modern artillery is also his weapon. Use camou- 
flage or die, is the ultimatum and will so continue as long as the 
aeroplane remains a weapon of war, and the use of the aeroplane 
in war is but in its infancy. 

I would like to see all that was learned this time brought 
together in a treatise on camouflage, and, weary as I am now 
with the military service, I would willingly contribute to the limit 
of my ability to such a work so those charged with "providing a 
technically trained personnel" and the special material for cam- 
ouflage, in the next war, will have something to start with which 
we didn't have in the last one. 

Through the kindness of the very accommodating attendants 
of the Louisville public library and of Stewart's book store, we 
obtained copies of every periodical containing an article or a 
paragraph on the subject of camouflage, and my acquaintance 
and affiliation with the quartermaster personnel enabled me to 
successfully requisition generous supplies of paints, brushes, can- 
vas, chicken-wire, and other things that experience or fancy 
suggested were, or might become, "special material for camou- 
flage," but the press clippings were so impractical that I do not 
wonder they made Colonel Guthrie laugh. 

About the time our classes started I was handed a typewritten 
bulletin from the War Department, previously mentioned and 
quoted from, which digested a lecture by Major Mackenzie of the 
British army, devoted almost entirely to the concealment of 
trenches ; and detailed to the engineer school, was a very intelli- 
gent French sergeant of engineers, Martine, by name, who gave 
us much practical information on the manner of screening roads 
at the front. But Sergeant Martine took issue with the British 
on the utility of trench concealment. Guided by the bulletin, but 
with the sergeant holding back, we managed to start the classes 
with pick and shovel. Sergeant "Heavy" Weathers, a fat, jovial 
lad, detailed to the regiment from the regular army, was put in 
charge of the digging reliefs after we had "sited" the proposed 
trench in approved waves, with cornerless traverses. When we 
checked up the work next day the waves had straightened into 
bee-lines, and the traverse-turns were angular and square. 

"Why didn't you dig that trench the way it was marked out 
for you, sergeant ?" Weathers was asked. 

"Sir, the French sergeant changed it." 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



"What did you change that trench for?" I demanded of 
Martine. 

He shrugged his shoulders and said something that sounded 
to me like "Three beans, messier, three beans," but which I now 
know he meant to say that the trench was very good. 

"Three beans!" I exclaimed, very much provoked; "it isn't 
worth that ; you've spoiled it. The dirt thrown out for the para- 
pet and paradose you have leveled off smooth and even too. We 
want to get away from the straight geometric patterns and sharp 
angles engineers have always used, because they are stiff and 
unnatural, and catch the eye quicker than irregular looking curves 
like the windings of a country stream do. Leave the dirt thrown 
out, in little mounds and hills, to confuse with and hide the heads 
of men in the trenches looking out ; it's easier done the way I tell 
vou and a whole lot better." 




NOTE HOW CONSPICUOUS THE SOLDIERS' HEADS ARE 
ABOVE THE EVEN SANDBAG PARAPET 

The sergeant tried to make me believe he didn't "compre" 
this long lecture, but I felt sure he had a fair knowledge of Eng- 
lish or he wouldn't have been sent to this country as an instructor, 
and so it turned out when he finally said : 

"No use — ze Bache, him know where iss ze trench." Like 
many another, he was stubbornly for the teachings of the old 
school ; he was there to instruct America and meant to do it as he 
had himself been taught. But the rank of a second lieuey finally 
overcame his zeal and losing interest in the department of field- 
fortifications of the camouflage section, he left us to our own 
idiosyncrasies and transferred his time and affections to classes 
in uncamouflaged field-fortifications under Lieutenant Taylor. 

There is room for honest differences in working out new 
theories, and this I found to be true more than once in working 
with some of the first lieutenants over me ; nice boys who admit- 

90 



MY HARDEST THING TO CONTEND WITH 

ted their inexperience, but also insisted that military deference be 
paid to their rank by accepting their judgment on all debatable 
questions. 

Since reaching my majority I had always been in business of 
my own, giving orders instead of receiving them from others. 
I have been asked what was the hardest thing for me to contend 
with in the army, and have replied that it was to keep up with the 
young officers around me, but I will amend that by adding, "and 
to be dictated to by youngsters who ranked me, in matters about 
which I knew more than they." As I only lacked nine months of 
being as old as General Pershing, it is obvious that practically all 
of my seniors in rank were my juniors in age. But that didn't 
worry me so long as they were reasonable. Most of them were. 
We were all trying to win the war and I am frank enough to 




AND HOW INCONSPICUOUS THEY ARE AFTER A FEW 

MINUTES WORK OF MAKING THE BAGS IRREGULAR 

ON TOP OF THE PARAPET. THE MAN AT B HAS HIS 

SNIPER'S HELMET ON HERE 

admit that most of them were better men, physically and mentally 
alert, fresh from college and as keen as Gillette blades. Leader- 
ship interpreted as a tendency to boss the job, scored big in their 
selection from civil life, and their commissions read that they were 
to exact obedience from their subordinates. To illustrate their 
mental keenness : when I thought to display the range-estimating 
knowledge acquired from Major Fulmer, I unfortunately selected 
Lieutenant Johnson, one of the brightest officers of the Three 
Hundred and Ninth engineers, to make first impressions on, and 
was chagrined that he worked the problem a bit quicker than I did 
myself. Later I was trying to find a book giving the prismatic 
colors and their arrangement, and asked Captain Allen where one 
could be found. He said he didn't know of any available book, 
but he could give me the colors as wanted, and immediately 
recited : 

9i 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

"Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red," and added, 
"the initials of these colors spell the word VIBGYOR ; remember 
that and you'll always remember the colors in their order in the 
solar spectrum." 

At another time I was detailed to defend a sergeant in a case 
which Lieutenant Bill was prosecuting, and was surprised at the 
lawyer-like manner in which he presented his evidence and 
summed it up before the court. I know he was without legal 
training, but he couldn't have done better had he been a graduate 
of Harvard Law School. 

Their ability and quickness was well shown in their psycholog- 
ical grades. Nobody could tell in advance just what the new army 
from civil life would do, and every crank with a pet theory on 
physical or mental efficiency-indication was licensed to try it out 
on us. We were all ordered to take a psychological examination, 
in which five was perfect and four just beyond human attain- 
ment. Regular army officers were included until their grades 
commenced coming in at two and under for so many that they had 
to be excluded "for the good of the service," to save its reputation. 

We took the test in blocks of a hundred or two at a time, 
seated at tables with pencil and paper. The leader stood on a 
platform and several spotters circulated through the body to see 
that nobody fudged on Uncle Sam. When he was ready the 
leader said : 

"You will all hold up your pencils so I can see them, and keep 
them there until I say 'go !', then you will write down the numbers 
I shall repeat, stopping the instant I say 'stop,' and again holding 
up your pencils. I will now repeat ten numbers which you will 
remember and write down after I am through, just as I give them, 
but not beginning until I say 'go !' " 

Next he gave us ten words ; then to draw a line connecting 
certain dots in certain ones of a dozen or more lines, or to draw 
lines under, over, through, between, alongside, etc., etc., of cir- 
cles or squares on printed diagrams, all exercises to indicate 
adaptability, we were told, for remembering orders and commands 
in the great war. 

Then we were asked for synonyms and antonyms ; indicative. 
I suppose, of our ability to crab over army life or to lambaste 
subordinates, and for antithesis and syllogisms, presumably to 
show how near we could interpret wrong and incomplete orders, 

92 



MORE ABOUT CAMOUFLAGE 

and wound up with problems in mental arithmetic, all at break- 
neck speed. We were told if we didn't know to guess, as it was 
important to ascertain how good we were at that. 

Most of the engineers made high grades like 3.5, 3.75, and 4. 
I noticed some who afterwards attained highest rank were among 
those with the low grades and our Major Smith, a former Purdue 
University professor, declared the test was more indicative of 
snap-judgment than strong reasoning power, because there was 
not time enough allowed for a careful thinker to function. That 
was consoling to me with a grade of 2.55, and I immediately listed 
myself with the careful thinkers. 

I started to tell you something about camouflage, but as usual 
have sadly digressed. 

Anything that keeps the enemy from recognizing the exist- 
ence, nature, or location of our supplies, troops, artillery, dug- 




FROM A PHOTOGRAPH OF AN IDEAL SECTION OF A GERMAN 
TRENCH. IT LOOKS LIKE A DUMP HEAP 

outs, observation-posts, telephone stations, and other military 
works is camouflage, which should not be confused with simple 
screening. 

The country in which the late war was fought was sketched, 
mapped and checked up more accurately than any battle-area in 
history. It was divided up into blocks, lettered and numbered so 
every spot could be quickly referred to. Thousands of observers 
of both contestants in aeroplanes, captive balloons and other posi- 
tions of advantage, were constantly photographing and examin- 
ing the country to discover any movement by the opposite side. 

Photographs taken from directly overhead or obliquely were 
minutely studied by specialists trained to detect and interpret the 
faintest marks, and other observers from the ground or from 
captive balloons or in low-flying aeroplanes with field-glasses 
looked into military secrets, unless skillfully concealed by 
camouflage. 

Each division had a division camouflage officer with subor- 

93 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

dinate officers under him. They advanced with the divisional 
engineer, ahead of the division, to reconnoiter for positions and 
to plan for their camouflage. They afterward inspected the cam- 
ouflage as erected. The bulletins issued in France said: "The 
instructions regarding concealment are of vital importance and 
must be obeyed." 

Non-commissioned officers of the camouflage section were de- 
tailed by the division camouflage officer to go forward with the 
infantry, artillery, machine-gun and other organizations most 
needing their services. 

All camouflage was required to be planned with a knowledge 
of the locality, secured by aeroplane photographs. As a conse- 
quence the camouflage and aviation sections worked closely to- 
gether. Country in which military works were about to be placed 
were first photographed to enable the camouflage to be planned 
wisely ; then afterward to determine the success of the conceal- 
ment attempted. 

A few of the problems of common occurrence may not be 
amiss : Unless properly concealed, the extra dirt from excavating 
dugouts along trenches where the men slept, made the positions 
of the dugouts conspicuous in the photographs ; piles of ammuni- 
tion and other supplies called "dumps" being stacked in human 
regularity as contrasted with nature which is exceedingly irreg- 
ular, showed in air pictures most conspicuously ; barbed wire 
entanglements showed as straight-edged bands of different shade, 
usually darker than the ground traversed. They were often ac- 
centuated by marginal paths or by the narrowing of roads passing 
through them, and if the enemy was able to trace our system of 
wire they found from its formation the location of our machine- 
gun emplacements, strong-points, in fact, our entire system of 
defense. 

Telephone and buzzerphone systems connecting batteries, com- 
mand posts and observation posts were visible in enemy photo- 
graphs, the overhead lines showing as a series of light dots, dirt 
from post-holes, spaced regularly in straight lines and in most 
cases followed by a path caused by linemen hunting breaks in the 
wire. Often these paths were enlarged by men walking from one 
important place to another, since the telephone line usually takes 
the shortest route. If the wires were in trenches left open so 
trouble could be located, they differed from defensive trenches 

94 



ARMY CAMOUFLAGE BULLETINS 

in that they were straighter and were free from traverses. Either 
way the lines were very apparent and were a vulnerable part, for. 
by breaking the system of communication a battery could be ren- 
dereded ineffectual and useless or a whole division disorganized 
by cutting it off from its divisional command. 

The elimination of foot-prints and paths was a most serious 
problem. Just as the nap on plush shows every touch, so foot- 
prints made by men around camouflaged works provided signs 
by which the work was likely to be discovered by the enemy. 
They changed the natural texture of the surface and it photo- 
graphed light. 

Engineer Field Notes No. 23A, issued to us in France, said : 

"We must not make the error of believing that movement les- 
sens the use of and the absolute necessity for camouflage. 

"As movement of troops is in itself conspicuous, so does the 
necessity for concealment increase proportionately. The move- 
ments of troops and guns in the back area is closely watched by 
the enemy aeroplanes and, as soon as the former arrive near new 
positions, aeroplane photographs are taken. It is the invariable 
rule that camouflage must be completed before emplacing the 
guns. Therefore, the camouflage detail should precede a battery 
and, if possible, the guns should not be brought near the pro- 
posed emplacement until the camouflage has been erected. If 
this is not done it becomes an easy task for the enemy's intelligence 
officer to plot the new positions on the map, which means that 
the guns will either be destroyed or the position be rendered 
untenable. 

"Everything that can assist in quick concealment must be 
utilized ; as positions beside existing paths or roads, in broken 
mottled ground, guns irregularly aligned, the use of natural cover 
such as groups of trees and cut branches, and the quick erection 
of the various types of light, portable camouflage materials sup- 
plied by the camouflage section for field and heavy artillery, 
machine-guns, trench mortars, search lights, etc. 

"Men must be drilled in quick erection of camouflage, as a 
few moments' delay may result in severe casualties and possible 
annihilation." 

This doesn't sound as if camouflage was regarded as a joke 
by the fighting men at the front, does it? I quote the following 
from another bulletin issued in France : 

95 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



"As soon as an advance has been arrested more permanent 
camouflage than the portable sets must be erected, covering not 
only the gun itself, but also the shelters which will be dug. 




DRAWN FROM PHOTOGRAPH OF LARGE FRENCH CAM- 
OUFLAGED GUNS AT THE BATTLE OF VERDUN 

"To secure such camouflage : 

"i. Ask the divisional engineer for a camouflage officer." 

This bulletin also defines the measure of responsibility of the 
various officers and says, in regard to camouflage rules for any 
particular location, "These the camouflage officer must make, 
sufficient to cover the maintenance of the camouflage and the 
preservation of the concealment it affords." The officer in com- 
mand is then charged with enforcement of the rules made by the 
camouflage officer as follows: 

"Very Important. Camouflage discipline is the observance 
of the camouflage rules which prevent the discovery of a camou- 
flage position. It is created to prevent the betrayal of the posi- 
tion through carelessness. Its enforcement must be strict, unre- 
mitting and universal, if unnecessary annihilation would be 
avoided and the tactical mission fulfilled. There are no special 
privileges for officers. The foot-print of a general is as visible 
in the aeroplane photograph as that of an enlisted man." 

At Camp Taylor and later at Camp Sherman the camouflage 
section of the Eighty-fourth division tried out all suggested 
ideas and many original ones, which were finally boiled down into 

96 



SOME OF OUR MASTERPIECES 

a sixty-four-page set of instructions embellished with 120 illus- 
trations, the pictures making it attractive and easy to grasp. 
This was reproduced by mimeograph, illustrations and all, Ser- 
geant Kleesatelle cutting the stencils in surprisingly good detail, 
and the mimeographed work was numerously distributed in the 
division. By later comparison with actual camouflage in France 
our instructions tallied remarkably. 

An early performance by Sergeant Kleesatelle was the con- 
version of a conspicuous latrine into a pen of mules. One had 
his head, made of painted tin, projecting out between the two top 
boards in such a natural way that his ears flapped in the wind, and 
Major Arthur Robinson declared it so fooled his favorite saddle 
mare that she neighed to it when he rode up one day to get a close 
view of the penned animals. 

Kleesatelle's fame so inspired Corporal Harper that he painted 
an old stone building into an open garage with several ambulance 
wagons in- it. One outlined on tin was just entering and being 
extended past the building broke the outline and looked quite 
realistic from the distant roadway. Colonel Bain told the follow- 
ing story on General Hale, in connection with this work : 

"The general and his chief of staff, Colonel Halstead, were 
riding by when the general noticed Harper's masterpiece. 

"Halstead," he called, "I gave orders that no army vehicles 
were to be stored in any old buildings in this camp, didn't I?" 

"You did, sir." 

"Well, look at that ambulance in that old shed. We'll go 
right now and see who's to blame for that disobedience of orders." 

So they turned their horses in on the side road leading to the 
old stone building, rode clear around it before the general was 
satisfied, then he looked sheepishly at his chief of staff and said : 

"I guess we'll say nothing about this to anybody, Halstead." 

Harper looked like an Indian and claimed to be partly of that 
descent. "If you want to see my likeness any time," he often 
boasted, "look at the Indian head on the new buffalo nickel ; I 
sat as the model for the sculptor who designed it." He had tes- 
timonials from a score of prominent artists of New York, for 
whom he had posed, and he knew many of the tricks of the trade, 
which helped us in producing several large relief maps of front- 
line entrenchments in papier mache for divisional instruction 
purposes. 

97 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Besides Kleesatelle, Weathers and Harper, who have been 
mentioned, my enthusiastic assistants were Sergeant Sharp, who 
engineered the erection of the big sheet steel observation tree and 
painted a warehouse into a well-filled coal-shed while a coal fam- 
ine was on ; Archer, who popularized our workshed by painting 
its exterior into a beer and coca-cola canteen ; Corporals Popp and 
Taylor, who painted weird patches and foliage on barracks and 
mule sheds until man and beast were delirious or lost in trying to 
find the way home ; Bott, who could do anything with a brush, 
but fell heir to most of the regimental sign-painting, and others of 
a list so long that it would include nearly all of the many who 
were detailed from time to time to the camouflage, sign-painting 
and drawing classes. Captain Durham and many of my old com- 
rades of Fort Harrison training days, and many officers of the 
division who ranked me, were detailed for instruction. 

Those desiring to learn more of the technique of camouflage 
will be enlightened b> following me through France in the pages 
to come, where I saw it as taught in the school of experience. 



98 



ARMY TRANSFER AND PROMOTION 



CHAPTER XII 

A CHAPTER ON ARMY TRANSFER AND PROMOTION 

As previously stated, I was detailed as an instructor in the 
Engineer School by order of the division commander, on October 
i- 1, 191 7. When Colonel Guthrie at our first interview informed 
Lieutenant Colonel Bain that he would employ me as an instruc- 
tor the latter suggests that a request be made to the War Depart- 
ment for transfer to the engineers, to which suggestion Colonel 
Guthrie then demurred: 

"Don't be in too big a hurry, Bain ; see first if the lieutenant 
can make good." 

On the eighth of November, following, Colonel Bain, as com- 
mandant of the Engineer School, called me into his office and said 
Colonel Guthrie advised that I make application for a commission 
in the Engineer Reserve corps, and urged prompt attention on my 
part as there was a likelihood of my being ordered to the Jackson- 
ville, Fla., quartermaster school with the body of quartermaster 
second lieutenants waiting to go. 

The rules required such application to be accompanied by let- 
ters of recommendation from three people acquainted with me 
For this I obtained letters from Mr. Fred Hetherington, presi- 
dent of Hetherington & Berner Company. Mr. St. Clair Parry, 
president of Parry Manufacturing Company, both of Indianapo- 
lis, ana! Major Fulmer. 

Lieutenant Colonel Bain forwarded the papers to the chief of 
engineers, Washington, which, at Colonel Guthrie's suggestion, 
were for a captaincy. The letter of advice by Colonel Bain was 
dated November 15, 1917, and said in part: 

* * * "Lieutenant Minturn is at present a very valuable 
member of the faculty of the Engineer School, Eighty-fourth 
division, and also in the instructing staff of the engineer regiment. 

"3. It is understood that on account of his commission being 
in the quartermaster company, he is subject to removal from his 

99 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

present duties at any time and it is believed that such removal 
would not be to the best interest of the Government in the pres- 
ent emergency. 

"4. Particular attention is invited to the letter of recommen- 
dation of Lieutenant Minturn, which is signed by Major J. J. 
Fulmer, Division Inspector, Eighty-fourth division. Major 
Fulmer is himself considered in the regular army, an expert on 
rifle firing and military sketching and his opinion in this connec- 
tion should bear great weight." 

Naturally I felt elated for I regarded this as an indication 
that I was making good in a line of army work that fired my 
imagination. One of my quartermaster friends attached to aft 
infantry regiment dampered my ardor a little by declaring a trans- 




AMERICAN SOLDIERS BEHIND A CAMOUFLAGE OF BRUSH ERECTED BY 
THE RETREATING GERMANS 

fer from one line of service to another was now impossible ; that 
he had tried it with the recommendation of General Hale and was 
refused. But my case was different, and the air I was walking on 
sustained me for about a week until the chief of engineer's reply, 
dated November 19, reached me. He said: 



1. Reference is made to your communication of November 
15, forwarding application for examination for commission as 
captain in the Engineer Officers' Reserve corps from Second 
Lieutenant Joseph A. Minturn. 

2. Orders from the chief of staff have been issued whereby 

IOO 



MR. MARSHALL DECLINES 

no commission can be given, excepting to full vacancies actually 
existing. There are no vacancies at the present time in the 
Engineer Officers' Reserve corps, and there will be none until 
the present inactive list has been, entirely exhausted. For this 
reason, it will be impossible to consider the application of 
Lieutenant Minturn. 

3. There are a very large number of applications on file 
ahead of Lieutenant Minturn's, so that it seems quite probable 
that it will be impossible to offer him any encouragement for 
quite "a long time in the future. His papers have been placed on 
file for such consideration, or if desired they will be returned 
to him. 

This began to remind me of the rocky road I traveled to get 
the commission I did have. I consulted with one of my good 
friends, who knew the army game, and he suggested that I use 
some of the political influence that helped me to get back into the 
army. 

"But there are recent strict orders against that," I reminded 
him. 

"Oh, well, that'll never be brought against you if you succeed. 
Get one of your friends to talk for you." 

I thought if I could explain the situation to Mr. Marshall he 
would be interested, and a word from him backed by the army 
endorsements I had, would fix it for me speedily. As I didn't 
want to write letters I obtained a pass and went to Indianapolis 
where I made arrangements with Postmaster Robert E. Spring- 
steen to go to Washington in my behalf. The result is told in the 
following extract from his report dated December 12, 1917: 

"I talked to Mr. Marshall and Mr. Thistlethwaite both about 
your case and both stated emphatically that it would be impossible 
for them to take any action in the matter. I went over the case 
carefully with them and even requested that they hold your papers 
and give the matter some consideration in the future, but they 
said it would be absolutely useless because they had been turned 
down on so many requests for transfer that it would not be worth 
while. They stated that the department absolutely refused to con- 
sider transfers, except those that came through the lines that you 
have already followed." 

Noting that Mr. Springsteen and the vice-president were mis- 
taken as to what I was asking for, and there being no other way 
open to me then, I wrote as follows to the postmaster and he for- 
warded a copy of my letter to Mr. Marshall : 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

"I am afraid I did not make my desires plain to you. I did 
not ask for a transfer as such is generally understood ; I want an 
order to take an examination for a commission as captain in the 
Engineers Reserve corps — just the same as if I had no commis- 
sion at all in the army. This has not been refused me, but I am 
told through military channels that I must wait until all of a large 
number of commissioned but unassigned engineer officers have 
been assigned for duty, and still longer until a large number of 
applications ahead of mine have been acted upon, before mine 
can be considered. 

"There is no reason, since I have been strongly recommended 
by the superior officers of an engineer regiment to which I am 
attached and am now doing the work of an engineer officer, 
why I should be handicapped and my efficiency impaired by the 
strict enforcement of a general rule that does not fit my case. 
Please read over the chief of engineers' letter, and the statement 
which I prepared for you, and see if it is not clear that I am asking 
for an order for examination for a commission and not a transfer. 
I want precedence over a number of others by reason of peculiar 
conditions entitling me to it — because I am now performing the 
duties of the office to which I am asked to be commissioned, and 
in which I am retained by the special efforts of the officers of 
the Eighty-fourth division, as the position is not an easy one to 
fill. You can readily see that anything I have to teach is les- 
sened in dignity and importance with men who are sticklers in 
matters of rank and use that as a measure of merit, when a man 
of my years, as instructor, is apparently worthy only of the lowest 
commission of second lieutenant." 

In a letter from Mr. Springsteen, dated December 27, 1917, 
he quotes from Mr. Marshall's reply, as follows: 

"The vice-president regrets that he is unable to become con- 
vinced that Minturn should have precedence over others, and, as 
his request through military channels has been denied because 
others are ahead of him, the vice-president feels unwilling to use 
any further personal influence, not that he has anything against 
Minturn, but knowing that preference given him will work to the 
detriment of others. I trust you and Mr. Minturn will 
understand." 

While awaiting the outcome of these negotiations an order 
came from the War Department, dated December 10, 191 7, reliev- 
ing me and seventy-two other quartermaster second lieutenants 
from duty at Camp Taylor and ordering us to proceed without 
delay to Camp Joseph E. Johnston, Jacksonville, Fla. Colonel 
Guthrie got busy over the wires with Washington, through our 

102 



COL. GUTHRIE RENEWS HIS RECOMMENDATION 

division headquarters, and by some means had the part relating 
to me rescinded for the time being, but the constant menace of 
being ordered back to the quartermaster remained. 

During the months of January and February Colonel Guthrie 
and Lieutenant Colonel Bain were both absent much of the time 
on sick leave, so nothing more was done in my case, but on Feb- 
ruary 25, 1918, Colonel Guthrie wrote to the chief of engineers 
that through information informally received, conditions which 
led to the order of the chief of staff, referred to in the letter of 
November 15, 1917, no longer obtained, he understood, and it 
might be possible to give favorable consideration to the applica- 
tion for transfer of Lieutenant Minturn to the engineers. The 
following is an extract from Colonel Guthrie's letter : 

"2. Since the above communications were written. Lieuten- 
ant Minturn's services have been very satisfactory indeed, and he 
has been of very great assistance in the Division Engineer School 
as instructor, both in camouflage and in landscape sketching." 

My former application and the papers supporting it, which 
the chief of engineer's office said would be placed on file for 
future consideration were evidently thrown in the wastebasket, 
judging from this reply, dated March 4, 1918: 

"1. Receipt is acknowledged of your communication of Feb- 
ruary 24, 1918, concerning Lieut. Joseph A. Minturn. A search 
of the records of this office fails to disclose your letter of Novem- 
ber 15, 1917, or the copy of the reply of this office of November 
19, 191 7. It is suggested that you renew your recommendation 
in this case, setting forth the facts in full in order that the matter 
may be given proper consideration. 

"2. If your recommendation is one for the promotion of this 
officer, or his assignment to other duties, you are advised that it 
should be submitted through military channels." 

It is the practice in the army to add whatever you have to say 
in reply to correspondence, by way of an endorsement, which is 
returned with the original. Following this procedure, Colonel 
Guthrie returned the letter with an endorsement dated March 11, 
including copies of former papers and stating in part : 

"2. The application of Lieutenant Minturn referred to in my 
letter of February 25, 19 18, was an application for examination 
for a commission as captain in the Engineer Reserve Corps. 
* * * * 

103 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

"3. Lieutenant Minturn holds a commission as second lieu- 
tenant in the Quartermaster Corps, but has been on duty ever 
since the establishment of the Engineer School, Eighty-fourth 
division, N. A., as instructor in panoramic sketching and camou- 
flage ; his services have been very satisfactory and he has con- 
tributed very largely to the success of the engineer school. 
Lieutenant Minturn was educated as an engineer, but later grad- 
uated in law and practiced that profession. However, as a side 
line he has kept up with engineering, particularly surveying of 
subdivisions and building construction. By arrangement, he is 
detailed for the Engineer School, but, being a member of the 
Quartermaster corps, he is of course subject to orders which 
would take him back to duties belonging to that corps at any time. 

"4. It is my opinion that Lieutenant Minturn should be com- 
missioned in the Engineers, and it is believed that his direct 
commission by means of the old application is probably the 
quickest and easiest way to accomplish this purpose. It is not 
desired to assign Lieutenant Minturn to other duties at the pres- 
ent time, and it is intended to secure his promotion more by means 
of a new commission than by transfer." 

These papers came back with an indorsement by the chief of 
engineers which convinced me that I was up against that Fate 
which always starts a fight whenever I go after anything. It was 
dated March 22, 1918, and read: 

"1. Returned, disapproved. 

"2. These papers show that when Lieutenant Minturn 
entered the military service he was not a practicing engineer, but 
was a lawyer and therefore not eligible for appointment in the 
Engineer Reserve corps. 

By command of the Chief of Engineers : 

E. EVELETH WINSLOW, 
Brigadier General, Engineers. 

Now, what do you know about that? Nearly up to the goal 
and turned down because I was a lawyer ! Instead of discourag- 
ing me it put ginger into the pursuit and made me really deter- 
mined to be an engineer captain. Just how, I didn't know. It was 
not meant to be, I suppose, but what I had heard Colonel Guthrie 
and other regular army men say against lawyers made me feel 
that General Winslow's reason for disapproval was a slur on my 
civil profession. According to the colonel a lawyer's mind is 

104 



CITED IN REPORTS TO ADJUTANT GENERAL 

trained wrong for him to ever become a good soldier. He draws 
his conclusion, so the colonel said more than once in my presence, 
according to the side of the case that his retainer comes from, 
then warps the facts to fit his estimate of what he would like the 
situation to be ; not what it was, while an army officer leaves his 
mind open until he gets all the facts, then estimates the situation 
from the facts and on this bases his conclusion. I came near get- 
ting in bad trying to correct this wrong impression of the colo- 
nel's. I had regarded a trial lawyer as necessarily a good fighter 
and a good general, one who had to estimate both sides of the 
situation carefully and use his ammunition well to win a legal 
battle, and believed then and do yet that a good fighter in court 
would make a good fighter in the army. 

But as my specialty was patent law, involving a wide knowl- 
edge of all of the arts and sciences as well as of engineering, why 
fight the general practitioner's battles when I could qualify in 
this case as an engineer? I set about getting affidavits and was 
soon in position to submit a formidable array of sworn statements 
from prominent manufacturers and college professors who knew 
me professionally in civil life, to the effect that I was an engineer 
and practiced it for more than twenty years prior to and up to my 
entering the military service. If the chief of engineers doesn't 
throw my papers away again, posterity will have something to be 
proud of when it reads that record of its ancestor. 

To these affidavits I added the following quotations taken 
from reports of inspectors sent by the War Department to inspect 
the Eighty^-fourth division and the Three Hundred and Ninth 
engineers, respectively : 

Extract from the report to the adjutant general, U. S. Army, 
Washington, D. C, of the inspection of the Eighty-fourth divi- 
sion, N, A., made by General T. O. Donaldson, I. G. D., February 
19, 1918, referring to the Three Hundred and Ninth Engineers: 

"* * * * A great deal of attention has been devoted to 
camouflage instruction and good work seems to have been done 
in this subject. The instructor in this subject, Second Lieutenant 
Joseph A. Minturn, 0. M. C, appears to have a natural talent for 
this work. It appears this officer should be transferred from the 
Quartermaster corps to the Engineer regiment for which he is 
better fitted. * * * * The officer appears to be in fine 
physical condition." 

Extract from the report to the Adjutant General, U. S. Army, 
Washington, D. C., of the inspection of the Three Hundred and 

105 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Ninth Engineer regiment and train. Eighty-fourth division, N. A., 
made by Colonel Lytle Brown, Engineers, N. A., April 14, 191 8: 
« 2 _ * * * * There is attached one officer of the Quar- 
termaster corps, Second Lieut. J. A. Minturn, of whom special 
mention is here made. This officer is gifted and qualified to an 
extraordinary degree for service in camouflage work. I recom- 
mend that he be transferred from the Quartermaster corps to the 
Engineer Officers' Reserve corps and be promoted * * with 
a view to his assignment to camouflage work." 

Colonel Guthrie was dead, and Colonel Bain, as his successor, 
forwarded my papers to the chief of engineers. 

One day in April Colonel Pearson, camp quartermaster, 
called me to his office and wanted to know how I was getting 
along at the engineers, and just what I was doing there. I told 
him, and he asked : 



K«SP 




AMERICAN TROOPS PRESSING THE BOCHE RETREAT IN THE 
ST. MIHIEL SALIENT 

"I thought they were going to transfer you and give you a 
promotion?" 

"That's been the effort for some months, I understand." 

"Well, why don't they do it then I'll get you a captaincy ; 
come on back home, we need you here." 

"I wouldn't see service at the front, here, would I ?" 

"No, you don't really want that?" 

"But I do, though: now I've gone this far I'd rather go to 
France as a second lieutenant than stay here as a captain ! Can't 
you recommend me for a captaincy and overseas service too?" 

"All right," after a moment's thought, "you're no good to me 
or the quartermaster department where you are now. Write me 

106 



COLONEL PEARSON'S RECOMMENDATION 

a letter giving your education and army experience and I'll do it." 
He wrote the following letter to the quartermaster general as the 
result of our interview : 

April 29, 1918. 
From : Camp Quartermaster, Camp Zachary Taylor, Ky. 
To : The Quartermaster General of the army 

(Attention Personnel Division) 
Subject: Transfer of Second Lieut. loseph A. Minturn, 
Q. M. C, N. A. 

1. Attention is invited to the attached letter of Lieutenant 
Minturn giving a brief history of his education and assignment ; 
also to the several letters of recommendation and certification of 
his ability from various army officers and others regarding Lieu- 
tenant Minturn. 

2. Lieutenant Minturn reported for duty at this camp on 
August 29, 1917, and was attached to the Purchase and Property 
branches of the camp quartermaster, where he did most excellent 
work. 

3. Since October 7, 1917, Lieutenant Minturn has been 
attached to the Three Hundred and Ninth Engineers, as an 
instructor in Field Fortifications and Topography— panoramic 
sketching and camouflage work. 

4. Lieutenant Minturn is still attached to the division as indi- 
cated above, and he is most eminently fitted for the work he is 
doing. 

5. While Lieutenant Minturn is 57 years of age he is a mag- 
nificent specimen physically and mentally, and his whole training 
has been along engineering lines, and his ability was so well 
recognized here that he was immediately detached by the division 
commander from the Quartermaster Department and assigned for 
duty with the engineers. 

6. While this office would like very much indeed to have 
a man with the ability possessed by Lieutenant Minturn attached 
here for duty, it is an absolute waste of very valuable material to 
keep such a man in a subordinate position here in the Quarter- 
master Department, and I urgently recommend his transfer to the 
Engineer corps, where he will give a most excellent account of 
himself on any duty to which he may be assigned, as his engineer 
ing experience has been most extensive, and he is a thoroughly 
practical as well as a theoretical engineer. 

7. In connection with the above I would, recommend that he 
be promoted to the grade of captain, as his services have been of 
inestimable value since he came to this camp, and Minturn is a 
most capable man and his promotion is warranted. 

107 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

8. Lieutenant Minturn is extremely desirous for foreign 
service and will make an excellent man for such duty. 

S. B. PEARSON, 
Lt. Colonel, Q. M. Corps. 
8 Incls. (Copy for Lt. Minturn.) 

On May 12, 1918, paragraph 2 of Division Special Orders No. 
131, relieved me from attachment to the Three Hundred and 
Ninth Engineers and assigned me to duty in the office of the 
Division Quartermaster. This was to insure my going overseas 
with the division ; otherwise I would have remained behind with 
the camp quartermaster ; but less than a week later I was handed 
a copy of the following telegram : 

Washington, D. C. 7:33 p. m. May 17, 1918. 
Commanding General, Camp Taylor, Ky. 

Second Lieutenant Joseph Allen Minturn appointed first 
lieutenant Engineers National Army with rank from May 15. 
Direct him to mire acceptance Attention Room 363. and report 
to you for assignment to duty with Three Hundred and Ninth 
Engineers. 

McCain 

7:22 p. m. 

Curiously that was not in response to my application for exam- 
ination for a commission as captain in the Engineer Reserve corps 
but a transfer; a doing of the very thing that Mr. Marshall and 
others had delcared the department absolutely refused to con- 
sider. It was for a first lieutenancy ; why not a captaincy which 
Colonel Guthrie had told me to put in for and had been talked so 
much about? Colonel Guthrie died before Colonel Lytle Brown 
came to inspect our regiment, but I had Colonel Bain's statement 
that Colonel Brown was going to recommend a captaincy and 
assignment to camouflage work, upon which event Colonel Brown 
thought I would be sent to instruct at the Engineer Officers' 
Training camp at Ft. Lee, in Virginia. In that case I would 
never have seen France and am glad I did not get a captaincy 
then. 



[08 



WE MARCH AND CAMP 
CHAPTER XIII 

HIKES AT CAMP TAYLOR 

There had been much talk of a long hike of the Three Hun- 
dred and Ninth engineers to Indianapolis and Martinsville, the 
latter place being Colonel Bain's home town, which would com- 
bine practical engineering with marching and tent life. It was 
looked forward to with pleasant anticipation as a relief from irk- 
some barracks routine. We were not told when the start would 
be made, but were warned to be ready. 

The order came early in May that the regiment would move 
out by 6 o'clock next morning, and great was the bustle that fol- 
lowed but few there were who actually were ready when the 
time came. 

The regiment finally got away ; marched out two or three 
miles, then marched back, which was far enough, however, to 
demonstrate how little prepared we were. We were cautioned 
again to get ready, as none would be told when the real march 
would begin. 

Within a week a second order came and we got away in very 
good shape. Colonel Bain informed me that as a second lieuten- 
ant I was not entitled to ride ; therefore, I should walk and would 
be attached to D company for the trip. The stable orderly not 
receiving instructions from anybody it seems, reasoned it out that 
I was entitled to a horse and brought me one, which, thinking 
the C. O. had probably changed his mind, I mounted and rode 
bravely off with the officers of Company D. The colonel started 
ahead, but halted at the first little village to review his troops. 

"What are you doing with that horse?" he demanded when he 
saw me riding by. 

"The orderly brought him without my request, sir, I supposed 
you'd changed your mind and sent him. So I'm riding him, as I 
take it you'd have me do," and I smiled my gratitude. 

"No, not so! I intended you should walk." 
109 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

"Very sorry for the mistake, sir; shall I walk from here?" 

"No, if you're soldier enough to rustle yourself a mount in my 
regiment without orders you're entitled to ride, so keep your 
horse." I kept him, but don't know yet whether the colonel was 
in earnest or only joking in the whole matter. 

We marched toward the Ohio river and soon were in the hilly 
country bordering that waterway. One of the enlisted men with 
weak lungs fell out exhausted, and I insisted on his taking my 
horse, while I hiked with Little Casey. 

Casey was a character. He represented the Knights of Co- 
lumbus, and furnished the boys with free writing material and 
stamps at cost, and mailed their letters and cards for accommoda- 
tion. He refused when offered a chance to ride in the regimental 
wagons, and carried his pack like the rest of the boys so he'd have 
no advantage, he said, over the lowest private. 

His sympathy and cheer made Casey justly popular and the 
regiment would gladly have taken him to France, but he couldn't 
get orders from his superiors to go. 

The camp we finally made was on a level strip between the 
high bluffs and the river, near Iroquois Park and West Port, on 
ground barely large enough for our purpose which we reached 
over a trail so rocky and steep that one of F company's tool- 
wagons, mules, driver and all, fell off and rolled over and over 
until stopped by a tree half way to the bottom. We camped there, 
where hoarse whistles of passing steamboats saluted us for several 
days, cutting timber, building a new road up the hill with easy 
grades and reconstructing a considerable -bridge over a creek 
between our camp and West Port so we could get out that way 
011 our return home. 

Outposting, as rigid as if we were in the enemy's country, 
was insisted on. The first night 1 was in command of a picket of 
three squads, posted at a road- fork in the woods remote from the 
camp. Our picket furnished a cossack post on our level further 
out, and in daytime a sentry squad in observation on top of the 
bluff. It was my business to inspect the reliefs and the climb to 
the post on the hill was better than medicine to reduce the weight. 
We could see Louisville from there. Our food, a stew, was 
brought out in a wash-boiler from the company kitchen at the 
main camp, and as I was preparing to eat my portion, one of the 
men asked if I would have a cup of milk. He had a bucketful, 

no 



FIRST CAMP EXPERIENCES 



fresh from the cow. How he got it I did not inquire. He was a 
good soldier and as a good soldier is known to be a good forager 
it is not always best to be too inquisitive. 



a^pgQgagS ^rrT^-yy^^ . 




KENTUCKY WAS SO PATRIOTIC THAT EVEN THE COWS CAME 
UP TO BE MILKED 

In the morning of the fourth day equipment and rifles were 
removed from the many long rows of shelter-tents in the big 
camp, the shallow drains around the tents were filled and sodded 
and pounded down, the tent-pins were loosened and the men were 
standing at attention in front of their respective tents when the 
"general" was sounded. With the last note of the bugles every 
tent was lowered toward the river side; the packs were quickly 
made up, equipment swung and the men marched off in about the 
time it takes to write about it. Like magic, the busy camp became 
once more a lonesome field, without rubbish or scrap or scarcely 
a sign remaining to tell .the world that two thousand men had 
lived there four days, so marvelous and. thorough is our army. 

We put out an advance guard, with regulation point, advance 
party, support and reserve, to guard the regiment against surprise, 
whether expected from the Blue Grass region or the mountains, 
from ghosts of the Bloody Hunting Grounds, feudalists, moon- 
shiners, hookworm or German sympathizers, I know not, but I do 
know we were prepared, until our point made a mistake in the 
road, wandered off and got lost. 

At no time on this hike were we more than eight or nine miles 
from Camp Taylor, but it was just as tiresome to march around 
in a circle as in a straight-away direction. We were purposelv 

in 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

shunted "around Robin Hood's barn" to harden the good men 
and to bring the imperfections of the poor ones to the surface. 
We understood that these hikes were but preliminary to the ex- 
pected march on Indianapolis and Martinsville, the enthusiasm 
for which began to wane as the novelty wore off. We were 
destined never to go to Indianapolis because the entire Eighty- 
fourth division moved too soon to Camp Sherman. But we did 
begin another hike in early June, getting as far as LaGrange from 
where we made a forced march to take our place with the de- 
parting division. 

I was transferred to the engineers and made a first lieutenant 
between the times of the hikes to West Port and LaGrange, and 
on this last hike I was entitled to ride a horse. Our march was 
past the Louisville water works, where many of the ladies came 
out to cheer us on our way, and we continued east along the Ohio, 
through a beautiful country not yet browned by the hot summer 
sun which beat down and made a canteen of water seem too little 
for a soldier weighted with a heavy pack and gun. 

We established Camp Guthrie where a fair creek empties into 
the Ohio, and remained there three days, doing only good unto 
the farmer, who had let us into his pasture. Our camp was on 
the far side of a ravine across which the road ran after leaving 
the gate. It was so steep to a small bridge at the bottom, and so 
crooked that some of the wheels of one or two of the wagons 
missed the bridge entirely, causing the wagons to turn turtle. So 
we dug a new road straighter and easier and rebuilt the bridge 
to show we were good fellows and that all we wanted was work. 

A regiment of men, with the teams and tools provided by a 
generous Government, can do wonders in a short time, as we 
demonstrated next day to the admiration of that community when 
the lucky farmer, who had swarmed the hive of busy bees that we 
were, turned us into a large primeval timber lot. A deep, wide 
ravine was here also, through which the owner wanted a wagon 
road after the tract was cleared. The axes gleamed, the chips 
flew, the trees fell, the brush was cut and burned, the logs piled 
and the stumps blown out. Then a winding road was surveyed 
dug and graded, and a bridge built of round timber with end cribs 
and a fifteen-foot span, altogether a fair day's work for the privi- 
lege of tenting two nights and a day in the owner's pasture. 

It was at Camp Guthrie that the regimental order assigning 
112 



MORE CAMP EXPERIENCES 

me to F company was published. The first thing Captain Kelly 
asked was what I knew about barrel rafts, and as I had just 
watched E company build and take one apart I was not wholly 
ignorant. It was now F company's turn to show its skill in lash- 
ing poles together and floating them on empty oil barrels, and I 
was detailed to lead the men to the creek where they stripped for 
the job, and, like small boys, didn't want to come out of the water 
when our time was up. Needing a shave here and having forgot- 
ten my razor, I hunted up Goldsmith, D company's barber, and 
found him in default of a chair, with a customer prone on the 
ground, face up, head thrown back into a convenient hole, and 
the barber astride his chest wielding lather and razor. 




THE BARBER AT WORK AT CAMP GUTHRIE 

Our next camp was near LaGrange, but only for a night. 
Orders to return to Camp Taylor met us here. Next day was hot 
and dusty and F company was well to the rear of the column. 
As the day wore on we passed many a brave lad who had suc- 
cumbed to heat and blisters and fallen out by the wayside. We 
counted them by the dozens, lying in the shade of a friendly bush 
or tree until the wagon-train at the rear arrived to pick them up. 
Sergeants Ryan and Weathers, with their songs, chaff and run- 
ning jokes, helped wonderfully to keep up the spirits of the men. 
When the band played the soldiers forgot how tired and sore they 
were, we were told. The band was at the front and we so far 
back that we couldn't hear it play, but the sergeants challenged 
discouragement so effectually with wit and song that only a few 
of our men gave up. 

113 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

We went into camp early, ate supper and rested until after 
dark ; then broke camp and marched on and on in the cool moon- 
less night. Cautions came down the line, voiced from man to man 
from those in front, to beware of a hole in the road, a broken rail 
at the next bridge, and the like ; it was so dark. About 2 a. m. a 
shout carried with it the news that the advance party had 
sighted the lights of Camp Taylor, and from that time on excite- 
ment grew, for our call back meant that we were on the eve of 
our great adventure overseas ; and the next day the regiment was 
reprimanded by General Hale for coming into camp too noisily. 

Muster day, when every soldier must answer to his name, 
came every two months, and December 31 was one of these, fall- 
ing on a Sunday before New Year's. I asked for leave to remain 
in Louisville over Sunday and Monday with my wife, who had 
come from Indianapolis for the holidays, and we had a room with 
a Mrs. Clark on Fourth street. Major Efrid was the senior offi- 
cer in camp when I asked for leave, which he granted readily, 
without a thought about muster-day, apparently, nor did I remem- 
ber it. I saw him at church Sunday morning, so he knew I was 
not far away from camp. 

That night, just before the whistles blew the New Year in, I 
was called out of bed to the telephone by the engineer adjutant, 
who asked if I had been in the regimental area at any time that 
day, and when I replied in the negative, he said it was muster- 
day ; I had not answered to my name when it was called ; it would 
not appear on the muster-roll, and there would be trouble. But 
it was too late then to get there, so I told him I would be out in 
the morning. 

My wife had come in contact but a few times with army dis- 
cipline, and couldn't reconcile herself to the need of so much of it. 

"Won't they even let you sleep?" she asked a little peeved. 
But when I told her what the matter was she became unduly 
alarmed. 

"What will they do to you, put you in the guard house?" 

"Oh, I guess not," I answered with studied indifference, "but 
I may lose my pay for a while." 

Our room — the best we could find in crowded Louisville 
then— was open so the Clarks could hear everything, and their 
four-year-old daughter heard Mrs. Minturn inquire about the 
guard house. I reported at the camp bright and early ; had my 

114 



IN THE GARDEN HOUSE 

name put on the muster-roll, and returned to Louisville to finish 
my leave. The wee Clark saw me enter, and, rushing to her 
mother exclaimed : 

"Oh, mama, they put Lieutenant Minturn in the garden house, 
but he's out now !" 

Starting near E company barracks was a ravine which con- 
tinued with increasing depth to a deep stone quarry back of the 
Engineer School buildings. Near the quarry was a small house 
where dynamite and T. N. T. were stored and there were rumors 
that German sympathizers were plotting to capture the explosives 
and blow up Camp Taylor. The scheme was so plausible that the 
vicinity was made a guard post but the guard was so nervous and 
lonesome down there that he was constantly calling for the cor- 
poral till that officer refused to respond. But one of the men who 
had been assigned to that post regularly hit on a plan to get com- 
pany. He emptied straw and trash in the ravine near the bar- 
racks, which was very much against the rules of sanitation. 

The infraction was reported and condemned, but it did not 
stop, and Colonel Guthrie declared he would stop it by posting a 
guard and keeping him there until it was stopped. The new post 
extended down to and met the one coming up from the quarry, 
which enabled the two guards to see each other at every round. 
This occurence and the feeling that re-enforcements were near, 
made the tour of duty of the quarry guard more endurable. 



115 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



CHAPTER XIV 

WITH THE EIGHTY-FOURTH DIVISION AT CAMP SHERMAN, OHIO 

We moved to Camp Sherman, near Chillicothe, Ohio, as an- 
ticipated, taking everything but our paint brushes, which had to 
be turned in to the quartermaster at Taylor ; but he gave us a re- 
ceipt, without specifying the kind, which entitled us to draw 480 
new brushes from the quartermaster at Sherman to take the place 
of those turned in, and we gained a hundred per cent, on the 
transaction in quality and sizes drawn there. 

I insisted on Mrs. Minturn coming to Chillicothe and remain- 
ing until we left for France. The attractive Community House 
was just across the road from our regimental area, and although 
commodious, with its dozen of rooming annexes, the great number 
of friends and relatives of the soldiers of the division more than 
filled it. I stood in line for an hour and could only make reserva- 
tion for a room twelve days off. But it was a corner one with 
two windows, and I wrote my wife that she had better wait for 
it, which she did, but only to be placed in an inside, inferior room 
instead. I was very much provoked when I found her there. 
She arrived at an hour when I was unable to get away to meet 
her, and I protested with the management. I insisted on having 
the room that I had contracted for, but Captain Netts was unwill- 
ing to disturb Major Rockwell, who had taken it without previous 
reservation, a day or two before my wife arrived. I was supposed 
to waive my right gracefully in favor of a superior officer, but 
the proposition did not appeal to my sense of fairness. Colonel 
Bain advised that I protest in writing to General Hale. In due 
course the paper came back with an indorsement by Captain Netts, 
describing the old system of letting rooms, and a new and better 
one, for which he said it had been changed, and all reservations, 
including mine, cancelled. He concluded with the following 
paragraph : 

5. Lieutenant Minturn, by his cross-examining attitude, he 
116 



UNFAIR TREATMENT 

having been a lawyer in civil life, greatly annoyed and aroused 
the young lady at the desk, and also Mr. Kennedy, the general 
manager. I, Captain Netts, was conferred with Saturday night 
and explained the situation to Lieutenant Minturn, but Lieutenant 
Minturn's mind would accept but one idea, that he had been 
wronged and discriminated against. Lieutenant Minturn has 
failed to grasp the democratic idea of the Community House. 
People of the caliber of Mary Roberts Rinehart have been incon- 
venienced far more than Lieutenant Minturn at this institution 
without complaint. 

It was bad taste to drag the name of Mrs. Mary Roberts 
Rinehart into this. I didn't know her, and hold no brief in her 
behalf, but it's dollars to doughnuts she wouldn't have submitted 
to the deal we got, without complaint. I stood on contractual 
rights guaranteed by section ten of the constitution of the United 
States, and objected to the Community House brand of democracy 
which licensed them to impair my right at their will. That was 
the chief objection to Kaiser Bill, whom I'd left my happy home 
to fight, and it made me especially indignant that my wife was 
pushed aside to accommodate a major. The army, which con- 
trolled the Community House, would give me no redress, and I 
am sore over it yet. I was thrown out of court by the ninth in- 
dorsement, which said : 

"No good will result from a continuance of this subject. It 
is considered closed. By command of Major General Hale." 

■ During the brief stay of the Eighty-fourth division at Camp 
Sherman many Ohio recruits were added to our numbers, and 
these, with the increment of 1918 at Taylor, were practiced vigor- 
ously on the rifle rang*e, which was extensive enough to accom- 
modate a number of regiments at once. 

It was at Sherman that I first heard of Colonel McNabb, and 
his system of pistol and rifle training. He had been the instruc- 
tor of the Eighty-third division, which had just gone from here 
overseas, and Colonel Bain advised us to read and follow the 
instructions that McNabb left in a small pamphlet obtainable at 
the camp canteens. I met and served under Colonel McNabb at 
Chaumont, France, and will have more to say about him when we 
reach that part of the story. He insisted in his teachings that all 
bad shooting was caused by flinching; that anybody could aim 
straight enough, but many spoiled the result by moving the butt 
of the gun at the instant of pulling the trigger. Most novices 

117 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



doubt this, and lay the gun-movement which throws them off the 
bull's-eye to the kick of the piece. One way to demonstrate to a 
man that it is his flinching and not the gun-kick which spoils his 
aim, is to mix a few blank cartridges, made by drilling through 
the shell above the bullet and taking the powder out, with his 
clip of five good ones without letting him know it. The blanks 
make no kick because there is no explosion, but the man will flinch 
at the moment of pulling the trigger, and move his piece just the 




COLONEL ANDREW J. (SANDY) McNA] 
GENERAL STAFF, A. B. F. 

same, thereby giving himself away, and making him feel and look 
so foolish that he will exercise self-control enough afterwards to 
break himself of the fault. 

"The trigger-squeeze is the main thing," Colonel McNabb 
insisted. "Learn by practice with an unloaded piece to squeeze 
the trigger so gradually that you won't know just when the gun is 
going off, and you won't know when to flinch. It will be too late 

118 



SANDY McNABB 

to spoil your aim if you do, but if you pull the trigger with a 
conscious effort to snap the cartridge you're nearly sure to 
flinch." 

He said bad marksmen were invariably caused by bad coach- 
ing. He claimed one hundred per cent, efficiency by his method 
of training, and received a citation from General Pershing for 
distinguished service in France in rifle and pistol instruction. 
He was the crack shot of the army himself, and it was a common 
saying that any living thing Sandy McNabb shot at at a thousand 
yards and under might as well lay down and die, for he'd surely 
kill it. He was an army plainsman for many years where his 
reputation was known further than himself. He got off a train in 
Montana for a little shooting once with his favorite Springfield 
rifle and some of the natives, used to the Remington, wanted to 
know what he could hit with such a gun. 

"You, at half a mile," was McNabb's jaunty reply. 

"Well, stranger, I'd be willing to let ye shoot at me fur all day 
at a half a mile with that !" 

"Would ye? Must be wanting to commit suicide. Do you see 
that bush in the distance ? How far is it ?" 

"Better'n a half-mile, I reckon — 'leven hundred yards, any- 
way." 

"All right, just watch me kick up the dust to the left." 

He brought up his gun and fired and the dust rose to the left 
of the bush where he said it would. 

"Well, I'll be dashed! You must be Sandy McNabb, stran- 
ger," was the exclamation. 

His father visited McNabb at Camp Sherman and left this 
story : "Sandy came home for a visit and saw a fly crawling on 
a large mirror across the room, whipped out his revolver and shot 
the fly dead." 

"How about the mirror?" somebody asked. 

"Oh, broke it to pieces, of course, but he got the fly !" 

McNabb had a batallion of negro troops on the rifle range 
and one fine specimen of colored manhood was listless and surly : 
couldn't shoot and wouldn't try. 

"What the is the matter with you anyway ?" McNabb 

demanded. "I'll put dynamite under you if you don't wake up." 

"No use, sah, I cain't hit nothin'." 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

"Let me see you try," And Sandy got down and showed him 
how he was flinching. 

"You're worse than a girl. Does it scare you like that to 
shoot a gun off ?" 

His black comrades began to jeer and plague the soldier, who 
looked daggers in return and mumbled how he'd "Make yo' all 
niggars eat dirt out o' my han' yet!" But the colonel shut his 
tormentors up by saying he'd give them all a chance to do better 
if they could, and kept correcting the first man and showing him 
how until he quit flinching and began to make good scores. Then 
the black became intensely interested and next day the colonel 
found him alert and busy coaching his whole squad. 

"Yo' all's flinchin' — yo' is — how come yo' all laughs at me 
yestidy an' now yo' sca'ed like milk mos' too strong fo' yo' ! 
Didn' yo' see de colonel done science me on de trigga' squeeze an' 
say fo' yo' all to keep yo' eye on de gun sights an' ta'get, an' 
squeeze de trigga' widout any conscience ? I is gwine instruc' yo' 
all lak de colonel done make me promise 'fo' he'd let me up!" 

Colonel McNabb kept a revolver in his desk and practiced the 
trigger squeeze as constantly with it as a young lady does the fin- 
ger exercises on a piano when she desires to reach or retain effi- 
ciency as a performer. 



GETTING READY TO GO OVERSEAS 



CHAPTER XV 

FROM SHERMAN TO CAMP MILLS 

Early in August word came to pack for overseas. Boxes 
were requisitioned, and after they had been beautifully marked by 
the graduates of our sign-writing class, they were packed with 
regimental and company property. The enlisted man was re- 
quired to carry his gun, extra clothing, shoes, blankets, and such 
equipment as had been issued to him. These made a good man's 
load, but in addition, many had musical instruments, books, and 
cherished belongings that they were loth to part with, and they 
were generously permitted to take along all they were willing to 
carry. Some men were sights to behold as they started on their 
long journey, but they did not travel far until experience taught 
them to get rid of all excess baggage. The officers of my grade 
were allowed a bed-roll, a small locker, and such hand-baggage 
as they were willing to carry ; but most of us had accumulated 
equipment, clothing, and books, far in excess of our accommoda- 
tions. The result was that much valuable personal property was 
smuggled into the packing-boxes supposed to receive only regi- 
mental and company belongings. The latter amounted to a good 
train load, which was put in charge of Lieutenant Davis, of F 
company, with Sergeant Ryan, of F, and details from other com- 
panies of the regiment under him. They guarded it to the sea- 
board ; camped with it on the dock, and went with it across the 
Atlantic in an old tub that after a long and dangerous passage got 
to France after the armistice was signed, and our part of the cargo 
was salvaged without ever being delivered to the regiment. My 
Bond and McDonough, a fine assortment of oil paints in tubes, 
and many other belongings were thus lost to me. The major por- 
tion of the mimeographed edition of our lectures on camouflage, 
with its 120 illustrations which Sergeant Kleesatelle had cut the 
stencils for and printed so nicely, were in the shipment, together 
with the choicest models and exhibits from Lieutenant Bill's En- 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 




REFUSES TO ENTRAIN WITH HIS 
REGIMENT 



gener-School Museum. Just why the latter were taken to Europe 
I was never fully advised. Even to this day, when I make a 
futile search for something I knew I once had, the sickening 
realization dawns that it was in that shipment that never caught 
up with us. 

We had a billy-goat and a couple of half-grown nannies that 
Bill had decoyed from somewhere, and a dog "Bobby" in company 
F that gave us some anxiety. But Bill we found too independent 
to allow himself to be smuggled aboard train in an army blanket. 

He walked off with 
his two young wives 
at the last minute, 
chewing the cud of 
contentment, and left 
us to center our affec- 
tions on Bobby as the 
company mascot. How 
Hobby got on the train 
has never been published. I found him standing in the open side- 
door of our commissary-car at the middle of the train then rac- 
ing toward Marion, Ohio, to go east over the Erie. 

That was his favorite pastime throughout the trip, and no 
child ever took more interest in watching the scenery. He at- 
tracted as much attention in the towns where we stopped as the 
soldiers did, and the Red Cross girls who handed doughnuts and 
coffee to the men insisted on pouring out a pan of milk for Bobby, 
who wagged his tail in grateful appreciation. 

We went in a round-about way from Chillicothe, Ohio, over 
the Erie to New York, but we presume it was necessary for the 
Government to use all available routes in troop-movement to 
avoid congestion of traffic. Other army divisions were moving 
to the sea-board, and when we arrived at Port Jarvis early Sunday 
evening we were held in the yards there through the night in 
order to make our terminal connections by daylight. Our train 
lay for the night between two trains filled with soldiers from other 
divisions ; one of which as I remember was from Camp Grant. 

Civilians were not allowed in our area the morning we left 
Camp Sherman, but the regiment lined up on the drill-field oppo- 
site the Community House before marching to the train, and many 
sweethearts and wives were looking at us. On any other occasion 

122 



I ASSUME ACCOUNTABILITY FOR A STOVE 

they would have been amazed and amused at the sight. A regi- 
ment of Huns after sacking a town could not have been more 
overloaded, but we were glad to be on our way. We had been 
two months at Sherman, and that was just two too many. 
"Where do we go from here, boys?" truly expresses the unrest 
of the soldier. 

I was detailed as supply-officer for the train. The duties were 
to see that the 482 officers and men aboard, comprising Com- 
panies E and F, a few casual officers, and three prisoners, were 
fed three times a day, and that the personal baggage of the offi- 
cers was safely transported and delivered to the owners at our 
destination. According to instructions an express or baggage car 
was set the day before on the camp track, but on inspection it was 
unsanitary and smelled of rank fish. We threw out the slatted 
flooring and had the car switched up to a water-plug, where it 
was scrubbed and slushed, and after it was dry great crates of 
bread and supplies of canned meats and vegetables were loaded 
and a stove for making coffee installed, which latter article came 
near getting me into trouble. It was furnished by a civilian, who 
had the Government contract for supplying coffee for the jour- 
ney. As supply officer for our train, I signed for the outfit, and 
it was part of the agreement that this contractor's agent would 
visit us at New York, take over the stove and pay four dollars to 
our company cooks for making the beverage en route, he furnish- 
ing all the materials. 

The agent failed to appear as scheduled ; the cooks were not 
paid, and I did not want to lose possession of the articles which 
I had assumed accountability for, and therefore ordered the men 
to take them along when they detrained. It was a large stove ; 
new, with two copper boilers and of considerable value. 

When Colonel Bain saw it at Camp Mills he demanded : 
"Where did you get that stove?" Brought it with us from Camp 
Sherman, sir." Why didn't you leave it in the car where you 
found it? You had no business taking it out." "I signed for it, 
sir. A man was to meet us in New York and take it off our 
hands and pay our cooks for making coffee en route here ; nobody 
met us and we are holding the stove until we get a proper release 
and our money." "You'll have that stove following you and the 
regiment all over France. Get rid of it." 

We did get rid of it, but not until the contractor hunted us up 
123 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

and paid the money and gave a proper release. And also not until 
I had several nightmares, in which I was hiking through shell-torn 
France with Joan of Arc and LaFayette vainly striving to release 
me from a pack in which a stove and two large coffee boilers 
predominated. 

The train from Sherman was made up of 
day-coaches for the enlisted men, E company's 
in front, separated from F company by the 
commissary car to which corporals reported at 
meal time, and received rations for their squads, 
and Pullmans in the rear for officers. 

In France there were no Pullmans ; offi- 
cers rode in coaches and enlisted men in box 
cars, the capacity of which was fixed by the 
famous legend "40 Hommes, 8 Cheveaux." 

We reached Camp Mills near sundown af- 
ter a day of shunting by rail and ferry around 
Manhattan and Long Island, which we did not 
complain about, because the sky-lines and 
''lafaye^tte, I'm water-fronts were new to us raw inlanders. 

Camp Mills was on a barren and unattractive part of Long 
Island, well in from the coast near the western end. There was 
plenty of room to spread over the flat country ; it was a city of 
tents with occasional wooden administration buildings, and was 
not an attractive place to linger in. It was a concentration camp 
for soldiers about to go overseas and our ranks were soon over- 
filled with casuals from Louisiana to Maine to whom it was my 
duty to read the Articles of War and impress with the seriousness 
of their new obligations. 




124 



OUR STOP-OVER AT CAMP MILLS 



CHAPTER XVI 

LIFE AT CAMP MILLS AND ABOARD SHIP 

We were quartered in tents at Camp Mills, in Section 5, Block 
3, close to camp headquarters, and from sign-boards still visible, 
close to where the Rainbow Division mobilized for oversea serv- 
ice. As the sun went down a chilly breeze came in from the 
Atlantic across Mineola aviation field, and blew clouds of sand) 
real estate into the food that the company cooks were preparing 
for men with appetites whetted by a three-day diet of cold canned 
beef, salmon and beans. During this wait I had spread my blan- 
kets and was unreefing the walls of the tent that my predecessor 
had tied up to allow the ground inside to dry, when an orderly 
told me to report to the commanding officer. There I was told 
to "deliver those three prisoners that came on your train to their 
own organizations at once, and get receipts for them." 

I shall always remember Camp Mills after that night's experi- 
ence. A stranger in a camp of many square miles where a hun- 
dred thousand soldiers are, who are equally strange to the camp 
and to each other, is an easy place to get lost in. Each of the 
three prisoners belonged to a different organization ; all, as it 
turned out, quartered in different parts of the camp, and not even 
camp headquarters could tell just where those newly arrived 
regiments that night were located. But it was up to me to find 
out "at once," which meant that I called for a guard-detail and 
marched off in the dark without supper. 

Many a tired and snoring officer was called from dreamland 
to answer if his was the Three Hundred and Enthty-enth regi- 
ment of the Eighty-fourth division, and to swear at us when he 
discovered our mistake. But along after midnight we delivered 
our last prisoner, got a receipt for him and for his confiscated 
knife, watch, or pocket money, from his commanding officer, and 
returned with much the same feeling that the man who found 
Garcia must have experienced. 

125 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Tuesday and Wednesday I was on guard duty in a dust-storm 
more severe than any we had had at Sherman, where we then 
thought the limit had been reached, and on Wednesday I visited 
New York City, via Hempstead, Jamaica, and the elevated in an 
effort to locate Herbert, who had recently joined the naval avia- 
tion corps, and wrote that he would sail for France about this 
time. After supper Harry Grove and I visited naval headquar- 
ters 280 Broadway. A clerk called up League Island receiving 
ship at Philadelphia, and was told that Herbert might be at 
Rockaway Air Station, but I was disappointed when I went there 
the next afternoon. 

The few days while we remained at Camp Mills were occupied 
with outfitting the men with overseas equipment, and in breaking 
in a horde of miscellaneous recruits with which our ranks were 
quickly over-filled. Inspections alternated drill-periods through- 
out the day, and to keep us limbered up for coming sea and 
over-the-top duty our colonel located a piece of ground a mile or 
so outside the camp limits large enough to hold a regimental 
parade on, where we drilled and stood retreat and where the 
ground was so full of hills and holes, hid by the tall grass, that 
most of the company officers fell down while attempting "front 
and center" to the great merriment of the reviewing officers and 
watching troops. 

We had been at Mills but a short time when Lieutenant Davis, 
in charge of our heavy baggage, visited us. He said he was soon 
to sail on a small freighter, the captain of which, he thought, 
would take Bobby to France. According to agreement I smug- 
gled Bobby out of camp next night and Davis met me at Country 
Life Press Station. Bobby got to France in safety, rejoined his 
company, and came back to the states with it. Lieutenant Davis 
informed me that he inquired of the embarkation intelligence 
department at my request and learned that Herbert went aboard- 
ship August 26, and I had only missed him a few hours. This 
was a great disappointment as I had not seen the boy for several 
years and one could not tell what might happen now. 

Our change to overseas caps and the crooks in our necks got 
by watching the drills in the sky of aeroplane squadrons, often 
more than fifty planes were in sight at once, made us look and act 
strangely, even to ourselves. But after many were gratified for 
the first time with the sights of Coney Island and the lights of 

126 



GOING ABOARD SHIP 



Broadway, we embarked for the fatherland of Miss Liberty. As 
we watched her and the Woolworth building disappear in the 
West, and gazed upon the last captive balloon searching the har- 
bor for submarines, we thought of Charles Frohman, and what he 
called his "great adventure," and wondered if we too might be 
similarly embarked. 

The formality of going aboard was less than we anticipated. 
We had been lectured at Sherman by embarkation specialists on 
the necessity of hav- 
ing service records, 
full equipment from 
spurs to rubber bath 
tubs, tubercular ty- 
phoid, insect, vener- 
eal and all the long 
lists of certificates is- 
sued to us since we 
joined the army, 
ready for immediate 
inspection before we 
would be allowed 
iboard ship. We pic- 
tured ourselves as 
lined up on the dock 
to go aboard, in nar 
row passages, be- 
tween mountains of commissary and ordnance supplies that we 
were crowding out, each with an armful of documents that would 
be miscroscopically examined by experts, and any little flaw in 
which would require the flawee to stand aside while his organiza- 
tion sailed away and left him to wander through the war as a 
casual, a man almost without a country. 

So it was with great trepidation that we marched into an 
immense warehouse at pier 23, Manhattan, to find it empty ex- 
cept for a group of Red Cross women waiting to serve free coffee 
and sandwiches, and when our turn came to file up the gang- 
plank past officers, who merely checked our names, we were more 
surprised that not one of our documents was called for, nor any 
equipment inspected. 

Our boat was the "Scandinavian," flying the British flag. 
127 




CROOKS IN OUR NECKS GOT BY WATCHING 
DRILLS IN THE SKY OF AEROPLANE SQUADRONS 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Weird patches of black, white and brown covered it from water- 
line to the top of the smoke stacks. It was surrounded by more 
than a dozen equally camouflaged troop transports, all for the 
first few days out guarded by a convoy of gray naval cruisers 
and several fleet little submarine chasers. But the navy left us 
suddenly to find most of our way across that enormously big and 
restless ocean alone. 

On all of the many decks of the Scandinavian and clear down 
to the hull where one could hear the wash of the waters through 
the sides of the vessel as the ship plowed its way, the enlisted men 
were hung up in hammocks like crowded bats to sleep in hatch- 
ways, mess-rooms, steerage, everywhere. So great was the rush 
to get our soldiers into France that the vessels were overloaded 
and the discomforts from that source were added to by strict or- 
ders to keep all port-holes and windows closed at night, and 
thickly covered to prevent our light from being seen by enemy 
submarines. 

The men of Company F were quartered in steerage sections 
K N E and P, Section K in peace time was a third-class dining 
room, but now hung so full of hammocks at night that passage- 
way was almost barred. A long serving window opened into it 
from a kitchen, and through this room and past that window over 
a thousand men marched in single file three times a day to be 
served with food, which was ladeled into their own mess kits. A 
commissioned army officer was required to be on watch with 
every company at all hours of the twenty-four. Each watch was 
for eight hours. My private lo<j was as follows : 

First day out, Lieutenants Bill and Rose are my roommates. 
Bill hangs picture of his war bride conspicuously on wall first 
tiling; reads letter No. 1, from wife and says he has fifteen more 
to be opened and read, one each day. Am on watch in steerage 
section K N E P from 10 p. m. to 6 a. m. 

Stench with port-holes closed, horrible ; nearly seasick ; rats 
ran over my feet. 

Second dav, Lieutenant Johnson sick, which placed me in 
command of the company. 

Third dav. Lieutenant Johnson still indisposed, and confined 
to his bed ; Coloned Bain stated at noon conference that the polic- 
ing of F company quarters poorest on the ship, and its officers 
would be confined to company limits if policing not better tomor- 

128 



SHIP INSPECTIONS 



row. Sea quite rough ; not seasick, but from prospect of confine- 
ment to steerage, nearly so. In addition to other duties am censor 
of all letters written by F company men. Officers and men are 
required to wear life-preservers at all times, except when at 
meals and in bed ; then must be within reach ; also belt and can- 
teen full of water. Men provided with ordinary cork life-pre- 
servers,' but officers with new kind like a quilted sleeveless jacket, 
filled with a species of buoyant cat-tail fiber called "Kapok," 
which made a good protector against cold, and was soft, flexible 
and comfortable to wear. 

Fourth day. Up before revielle and down in steerage to in- 
spect policing and food. One corporal complained that dinner 
yesterday, which I thought looked good, was unfit for human to 
eat, and "never thought the American Gov- 
ernment would offer such food to a soldier." 
So I sampled the bread and meat this morn- 
ing. Bread was dark brown, but moist and 
sweet ; apparently wholesome. Think trou- 
ble is men are used to white bread. Cook 
tried to give me helping of meat from supply 
different from men's but I insisted and got 
a piece from same deep pan out of which 
the men were being served, and found it 
hot, tender, sweet-smelling steak, cooked in 
water, but unseasoned ; a thin white soup or 
gruel, peas, potatoes, coffee, prunes and 
oleomargarine completed the ration. Many 
of the men fell out of line to eat at tables. 
We got skinned for bad policing when half the ship feeds 
in our quarters, so ordered all men to eat on deck. Had ham- 
mocks folded and stored overhead in recesses made for storage of 
life preservers when not in use ; packs laid evenly crosswise of the 
long tables ; mattresses in berths, where there were any, 
doubled over half to expose floor through bed bottoms ; packs and 
equipment laid orderly on the folded mattresses. All men, sick 
or well, ordered on deck during inspection of quarters from 10 to 
1 1 a. m. Colonel Bain announced at conference, "All quarters 
are in better condition today, even F company's." I thought this 
an uncalled for slur on F and said so, explaining that I was the 
only officer of the company able to be on duty, or present to 




LIEUTENANT BILL 
AND HIS WAR BRIDE 



129 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

speak for it, and that ship's messing arrangements particularly 
added to policing difficulties. Rest of officers didn't know 
whether to smile or frown, until commanding officer smiled. 
After adjournment Major Efrid advised if any of the younger 
officers had said what I did, they would have been court mar- 
shalled for impertinence. But C. O. knew I meant no imperti- 
nence, and was only telling truth about best company in regiment. 

Went on duty KXEP from 2 p. m. to 10 p. m., then eight 
hours longer until 6 a. m. in Lieutenant Johnson's place, who was 
still confined to his berth by sea-sickness. About midnight one 
of the guards on deck called me to side-rail, saying: "Sir, one of 
the port-holes must be uncovered ; see the light reflected there 
in the water?" It did look like it, but on investigation we found 
the light in the waves was caused by a phosphorescent glow of 
some kind, which a private of F company who had been a country 
school superintendent in civil life, explained next day. was given 
off by minute animals called pyrocystis, that abound in certain 
waters of the ocean. An officer needing special information on 
any subject was generally able to get it by asking some private in 
his own company. 

The ship rocks so much more than usual today that the table 
at dinner, 7:30 p. m., is equipped, for the first time, with strips 
to keep the dishes from sliding off. Some of the officers were 
talking about iceburgs. swordfish, whales, etc., that had been 
sighted, and one declared while he had seen none of the alxDve, 
he had seen mermen riding bareback on sea horses in a bull ring, 
at which joke Colonel Bain laughed heartily. ( )thers, to whom 
the allusion to bull-rings brought disagreeable memories, were 
not so hilarii »us. 

Fifth day. Relieved 6 a. m. after sixteen hours' watch duty, 
b\ Lieutenant Wasserman. Went to bed; steward waked me to 
ask if I wanted breakfast. "No, let me sleep." Roused again by 
an orderly who said : "The commanding officer sends his com- 
pliments and wishes to see Lieutenant Minturn at once." 
Dressed and reported, to get skin from Colonel Bain, because F 
company men had not been coming to attention and saluting him 
properly. Back to bed and asleep, when another orderly reported 
with directions from the commanding officer to place privates 
Simpson and Williams under company punishment for not salut- 

130 




THE CENSOR COPIES SOME LETTERS 

ing Colonel Bain. After that another knocked to ask where the 

gun of one of the prisoners of F company 

was, and before I could get settled after that 

the men began their daily physical drill on 

the promenade deck, forming the roof of my 

state-room, making so much noise that I 

gave up trying to sleep ; dressed and found 

that I had lost all my United States money, 

$25.00, out of my hip pocket. 

All men were drilled daily in life-saving 
and fire formations, each company being as- 
signed a place on the ship's deck, and timed 
by commanding officers in falling in. F 
company being on port side of promenade 
(upper) deck, men had to climb a ladder captain (doctor) 

, . , , . . „. , DAVIS. "MY LITTLE 

from main deck to reach station, thirst day playmate.- 

F company was second from the last. That 
would not do, so we instructed the sergeants to get F men on 
deck as soon as they heard the bugle call for officers' assembly, 
and not to wait for a command from their officers after confer- 
ence, as heretofore. As a result we were near first, but still 
behind E and D and the Train who beat us at our own game, 
and reported by guess instead of calling the roll. Next day the 
colonel ordered all men to their bunks before the signal to fall 
in, and we were fifth out of twelve. 

Seventh day, Sunday. No company drill and had an unusual 
desire to attend church. Father ( >'Brien's services were being 
held in the officer's dining room at 10 a. m., but could not get in 
for the crowd. Waited at the door for protestant services at 11 
a. m. Colonel Bain came down stairway from upper deck and I 
saluted. Soon an orderly notified me to report to him at his 
headquarters. "Lieutenant, what are those men congregated 
below there for?" he demanded. "Church, sir, at least that is what 
I was there for." "Why did you not call them to attention when I 
came down, instead of compelling me to push through?" "Beg 
pardon, I replied, "I saluted the colonel, but did not call the men 
to attention for fear of disturbing the services going on inside 
the open door." Moral : Don't hang around church doors while 
in the army. The colonel is getting more exacting every day, 
and I fear I shall be disciplined yet. Lieutenant Shagrau is con- 

131 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

fined to his company area for a month for not knowing that 
guardsmen should be called to attention every time officers taking 
exercise on the promenade deck passed the part used for the 
guard-house. 

I am interested in some of the letters I censor. All the writers 
say they would like to write more, but dare not for fear of the 
censor. Many tell the old joke: "Had six meals today; three 
down and three up," but the following is equal to Ring Lardner's 
best: 

"At see, dear nel ; i cant Date this because the senser Says 
the germans wil no where ime at. Say, ime on the Old Boat al 
right, trubel is ther is 2 many of us on at i time, yesterday i seen 
a shark. We hav a Y. M. C. A. on Board two. Say ! nel less both 
rite 3 or 4 letters a week it will be nise if you dont here from me 
so of fin jest remember ime on Duty so Mutch. Say nel send me 
some riting paper and You sure wil get it all back again for ime 
not going 2 rite too eny other girl & want you to do the same. 
Say nel i have just thru my last good cigaret over-borde if you 
love me like you say then send me a pack of camels Say nel if you 
love me you wil hav to lurn to Love camels to & ile pay when i git 
on shoar. ime broke now Bying Apples and crackers at the can- 
teen to keep from starving to Deth. Say nel i just seen a young 
Wale 35, had 2 fins on his back but big enuf to swalo me hole. 
Say nel a fello gits tired of the Role of the ship, ime not a bit 
seasick but it makes you tird a Balansing so mutch, mothers levell 
kitchen flore for life wen i git out of this nel take mine dry from 
now on. Say nel i blame the germans for it & only Hoap the war 
will Last til i can git at them boshes they wil sure hav 2 to go sum 
too keep awaigh from my baonet work ime Fast nel and Rite 
there with that line of goods take it from me & i Hoap they cum 
in bunches so i can hav it over quick and get back two you. 
thats how i think of you nel. Say if i don't stop and shave ile 
have to get a dog Lisense. 

"ime your soldier brave and troo 

and ime thinking all day of you 

and i hope youl rite a few 

letters to him who must now say adew." 

We passed the first vessel this evening since leaving New 

York. Next day one of the naval cruisers fired a single shot and 

at conference the commanding officer warned all to be ready for 

emergencies in case of submarines, the danger from which would 

132 



A CARTOON BY EBERLY 



be greater from now on. We have daily war news by wireless, 
and report is, that two submarine attacks were made yesterday. 



IF a Gum Had a Strot^ SWnniA 
an<\ a lot o\ N«v« te hot* 
c(\ancc 




day *■/,(„ ft,r (Widjoi&viwBs, 

CARTOON BY EBERLY OP COMPANY F. FROM COMPANY F "EXPERI- 
ENCES." By Permission 

Flood of letters to be censored on account of yesterday being 
Sunday, and no drills, which gave the men time to write. 
Private M. to parents : 

'33 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

"This morning we had church services at n a. m. I was 
thinking of all of you at home, and how I wished I was in the 
Old Baptist church today. Our Chaplain Miller read the 24th. 
Psalm and took his text from Rev. 19:16. He preached a fine 
sermon and I am very thankful for the privilege of attending. 
So you see we have church away out here on the ocean as well as 
you do on the land." 

The following is from Private S. : 

"You know how I have always loved the water? Well, last 
night I swore if I ever got back home alive, 1 would tear down 
every marine painting in the house. But tonight it is different, 
I have got my "see legs" again and I think I will be able to 
weather any storm. Of course this is far from a pleasure trip. 
A third class trip is bad enough in peace times, but in times of 
war — well the least said about it the better. You know from our 
experience up on the lakes, that boat crews are a funny lot. 
There are a few typical Englishmen in our crew and you should 
hear one of them say, "Ang your bloody 'ammock hon the '00k." 

Private R. G., writing at length to "Swcetee," Omaha, Neb., 
is evidently a diplomat and knows who the official censor to F 
company is. He says : 

"We have a fine bunch of officers and sergeants, with the 
exception of a few of the sergeants, who held their position before 
the company was fully organized. The corporals I can say very 
little for. Only a few of them have any education or conception 
of system or justice. If God is good I shall never have to put my 
life in the hands of some of those corporals especially. They 
mean all right but have never had the experience to teach them 
how to exercise authority properly. 

"If we didn't have such a fine bunch of commissioned offi- 
cers it would be past me to survive. One old fellow, especially — 
he's positively the grandest officer I ever saw, and is liked by all* 
and believe me, I would go across no man's land any time for him, 
Lieutenant Minturn is his name, and he is in charge of the cam- 
ouflage work of the engineers. I certainly hope I get directly 
under him. I am sure I would make good at camouflaging as it 
runs along an artistic line, and painting to a great extent, and 
there is nothing I would rather do." 

Private R. L. tells the unvarnished truth (as he sees it) to 
his young wife back in the states : 

1.34 



AS COMMANDER OF THE GUARD 

"This is the first day I have been able to write since I left 
port, as. most of my time has been spent in feeding the fishes. 
This has been a terrible journey with all inconveniences and very 
few things that are good. The food that we are getting is very 
poor, but this is probably due to the English methods. 

"Such an unpleasant journey would be very hard to endure 
were it not for what we may help to do to make this a Christian, 
and a democratic world, and a place fit for our loved ones to live 
in and for our dear wives and folks back in our own loved coun- 
try to whom our thoughts are ever turned. Dearest, do keep a 
brave heart and it will not be long until we will be coming home 
and then you and I shall be very happy together again." 

So ran the hopes and promises of every letter, and to the 
credit of most of the writers they bravely said they were well and 
feeling fine, and on edge to annihilate the Hun. 

The complaints of our men about food and lodging are not 
much different from those made by troops who have traveled on 
this boat before. Some have left their tales of woe in penciled 
scrawls on the walls of the ship, and these have been answered 
there by returning soldiers, coming back to Canada and the states 
to regain lost health, or perhaps to die. They tell us with author- 
ity that our hardships are as nothing compared to what we may 
expect before we come back. 

One of our cruisers turned about and steamed toward home 
just before dark, or at least toward the setting sun, which we 
supposed is the homeward way. We have been zigzaging from 
the warm latitude of sea-grass and jelly-fish to the regions of 
the iceberg and whale, to outwit the enemy's under-sea navy 
until we scarce know what direction we did come from. 

Ninth day out. I went on duty at 8 a. m. yesterday as com- 
mander of the guard ; ninety-one men under me. Am writing 
this at 2 o'clock in the morning, in the smoking cabin of the ship. 
Here are six tables. bolted to the floor, each surrounded on three 
sides by leather-cushioned benches forming a half-dozen stalls 
now doing duty as headquarters for six companies of our regi- 
ment. My tour of guard duty has not been uneventful. Upon 
return from breakfast after guardmounting Lieutenant Kellum 
informed me that Lieutenant Colonel Elliott had sent twice for 
prisoner Casey to be produced for court-martial- trial ; that Casey 
and the twelve other prisoners had been sent out under guard to 

135 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



work at sweeping and policing the ship, and he could not he 
located immediately in the crowded and many compartmented 
vessel. While we were' talking the order came the third time for 
the prisoner, and soon came another for me to report at once, as 
commander of the guard, to Colonel Bain. When I reported he 
demanded why prisoner Casey, whom the court had been waiting 
three-quarters of an hour for. had not arrived. I told him it was 
because I didn't know just where he was to be found; that he'd 
been sent out as we were ordered to do, to work under guard, and 
had not been located yet by a sergeant and two men who were out 
looking for him. "What?" he exclaimed. "Don't you as com- 
mander of the guard know where your prisoners are? Get him 
here right away !" "Yes, sir," I replied, "I'm trying my best to 
find him, and will report with him as soon as he is located." 
This innocently intended explanation seemed to anger the Colonel 
more than if I had not attempted to make a reply to what I 
supposed was, in part, a question. "Don't you tell me what 

you're trying to 
do. You get tli a: 
prisoner here, 
and get him here 
d — d quick." And 
he puffed and 
beat the table 
with his fist. I 
didn't dare an- 
swer further than 
to meekly say, 
"Yes sir" and 
upon return to 
t h e guard-deck 
sent both waiting reliefs of fifty-eight men to scour the ship for 
prisoner Casey. They soon brought him in almost scared stiff 
with apprehension because of so many after him. and I sent him 
in charge of Sergeant Perrin to the commanding officer. As 
Lieutenants Shagrou and Harwood, who preceded us on guard 
duty, had both been sentenced for technical errors, by the colonel, 
Lieutenant Kellum and I anticipated confinement to company 
area for six months at least, for not producing prisoner Casey 
sooner, but we heard nothing more about the matter. 

136 




'YOU GET THAT PRISONER HERE D- 



A CLASH WITH THE SHIP'S STEWARD 

At 5 p. m. yesterday the officer of the day found that the 
prisoners were not complying with the order to stand while eating, 
and to wear their life preservers. One of them made some objec- 
tion when told to comply, and was brought up on deck from the 
"Brig." and sentenced to go without his supper and breakfast. 
To this he protested, saying he was too weak to go without eat- 
ing, and began to act ugly. 

One of the prisoners had attacked his guard recently and the 
colonel ordered us to go the limit in checking all mutinous actions 
and words. As commander of the guard, it was up to me to 
carry out all orders, so I instructed the guard to shoot if the 
prisoner committed any overt act. The latter scowled at me: 
"Oh I mean it," I assured him. "That gun is loaded all right, 
but you needen't be afraid if you behave yourself." He marched 
off meekly enough to sweep the deck as punishment for imperti- 
nence, until midnight, but was relieved at 10:30 for good conduct, 
and sent back to the "Brig," as a ship's prison is called. 

A Masonic meeting was held in the cabin aft by the officers on 
board belonging to that order, from 8 to 1 1 tonight. Thirty-two 
Masons were present, representing seventeen states, Canada, 
England, Scotland, and Govan, wherever that is; and after the 
British representatives had given us pointers on Masonic conduct 
in their country, those from the states were called on for remarks. 
The Worshipful Master sat behind a table with empty lower 
shelves in a middle stall that only the pilot of the ship could guar- 
antee was "in the East." 

Presently there was confusion without the temple caused by 
the sergeant of the guard clamoring for instructions from the 
officer of the guard in compliance with his G. O. No. 10. Be- 
fore going to the meeting I had given the fifty-eight guardsmen 
of the waiting reliefs permission to go to the deck below for 
protection from an icy wind that invited influenza particularly as 
underclothing and overcoats had not been issued to the men. 
Some of them asked if they could stand in the gangway of the 
midships' cabin. The O. G. gave them permission, and like good 
soldiers they promptly laid themselves down upon the floor and 
went to sleep. Later the ship's steward came out of his state- 
room and stumbled over a score of them to his great indignation 
and possible slight injury. Then he ordered every soldier to go 
outside, and the sergeant, remembering his general order No. 6, 

137 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 




paid no attention to the steward, but came to report and nearly- 
broke up our 
novel Masonic 
meeting 1 on the 
High Seas with 
a fear that a 
s u b m a r i 11 e 
alarm was being 
sounded in the 
earnest efforts 
of the sergeant 
to communicate 
with the com- 
mander of the 

•YOU ARE NOT CAPTAIN OF THIS SHIP" <>Uard. 

The steward was English and the captain a quiet old Scotch- 
man with too much sense, we thought, to turn our men out. We 
said to the steward: "These men are going to France to fight 
your battles, and we don't want them to die of exposure before 
they get that chance. You are not the captain of this ship any- 
way, and our soldiers are going to stay out of the wind and cold 
tonight right where they are until the captain of the Scandanavian 
orders them out." "( )f course, sir, that's all right, sir, Ill's get the 
order at once, sir!" And he posted off to the captain. We were 
a little nervous in spite of our brave front, while waiting for the 
steward's return, because we had been cautioned not to interfere 
with the ship's officers, and when the sergeant suggested: "If 
the lieutenant thinks best, perhaps I'd better have the men come 
out," I was wondering in my own mind what Colonel Bain's 
attitude would be if the captain were to side with the steward 
and make complaint. But we saw the steward coming, and were 
all relieved when he reported : "Sir, the captain says that the men 
may remain where they are." 

He also apologized, by saying that he was only doing his duty 
as he understood his orders, and we in turn thanked him very 
sincerely for his trouble and kindness in getting the captain's per- 
mission for the men to remain, and truthfully added that we were 
a little afraid the captain might object. 

Tenth day. Sea very rough, and boat pitching and rolling 
138 



COMPLAINTS BY OUR SOLDIERS 

badly ; many men sick, and have a touch of it myself. On duty 
KNEP last night. Passed place at 4 a. m., where the European 
navy should have met us, but at n a. m. not in sight. More let- 
ters to be censored. Soldiers writing industriously to catch first 
mail home. Here are some more extracts : 
R. to his mother : 

"Mother dear, we all realize what sacrifices you people back 
home are making, but God only knows what we are going 
through, and all that puts courage in us to stand it are the memo- 
ries of those at home. It sure is a big change in life, just like 
being in a different world here, but we intend to fight our way 
back to that other world in good old U. S. A. so dear to us. 
Home is what the soldier most thinks of— that and his girl." 
He writes to his wife : 

"I would part right now with $25.00 for a good meal, such 
as you would give me any time. The Johnnie Bulls are good fel- 
lows and mean well, no doubt, but they can't cook worth a d . 

We are just hoping for the time again when we can have our 
company cooks. I have been so sick for four or five days that 
more than once I nearly threw up my hobnails; but am feeling 
better now. I look at your picture every chance I get. Writing 
this is like sitting in a poorly ventilated cellar with a candle and 
going through the motion of a loop-the-loop at a carnival. 
Hoover says save food, but I haven't seen much saved the last 
week." 

Private R. L. ; again to his mother : 

"I am very tired of this journey, and also feel very weak, but 
we are looking forward to a better day, and that keeps us moving. 
Haven't eaten now for eight days. A sea voyage is not such a 
pleasant trip as many imagine. I never care to see water again 
after I have reached the dear old U. S. A. There are times when 
the ocean is beautiful, but it cannot be appreciated by one whose 
chief occupation is vomiting. The ship does rock terribly at 
times, and the breakers roll over the deck quite frequently." 

One of the men assailed the officers of F company so bitterly 
in a letter that I sent it back with a note that such expressions 
were likely to get him into trouble. He also said if he had known 
what he knows now Uncle Sam would never have gotten him on 
the boat. 

Another soldier wrote that the U. S. had contracted with a 

139 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

British company to transport soldiers at so much per head, and 
that was why our men were packed in the ship like sardines, and 
fed so shamefully ; that the British company was getting rich by 
its methods ; that it was wrong for the men to be loaded like cattle 
and fed like hogs when their officers were accommodated luxuri- 
ously and feasted on the best ; that the officers got choice and the 
men what was left ; that he had helped to hoist meat out of ship's 
hold that was green with mold, and if he ever became an officer 
he would see that his men fared as well as he, or he would insist 
upon eating the food that was supplied to the men. 

I sent for the writer and told him there might be much truth 
in his charges. I didn't know but didn't believe he could prove 
them. He'd written a bully letter anyway and should feel much 
relieved to get all he'd said out of his system, but now he'd bet- 
ter continue following Lincoln's advice in a similar case and tear 
the letter up. 



140 



CHASED BY SUBMARINES INTO GLASGOW 



CHAPTER XVI 



THE BRITISH ISLES 



Twelfth day. Routed out at 5 145 this morning for duty in 
K N E P. Last night Bill and Rose went to bed with their clothes 
on because of submarine scare. Our convoy had not arrived. 
Bill forgot, in his anxiety, to read his daily letter from his wife 
until Rose reminded him by asking if the mail was late today. 
This morning the destroyers are arriving, and we are passing the 
north of Ireland, the mountainous and rocky coast of which ap- 
pears too far away to the right for us to distinguihs details 
About noon we came in sight of Scotland, also high and rocky, 
and entered the Firth of Clyde, which gradually narrowed to the 
Clyde river ; then we knew we were bound for Glasgow. We 
passed many jagged rocky islands standing out of the sea like 
enormous sugar cones. About the middle of the afternoon I went 
on deck from censoring letters, and was delighted beyond my pow- 
ers of expression with the country we were passing through. 
Either it is beautiful or what I had recently experienced on the 
ship made me think so. I realize that appreciation generally 
depends upon the mental attitude of the observer, but we were 
near enough to distinguish trees and rocks and fields and houses 
on both sides, and I cannot now believe I was deceived. The 
country was rugged in the main, but with tracts near level, and 
pretty valleys sloping down to the edge of the river laid off by 
trim hedges into checkered fields, spotted here and there with 
stone houses and villages, and occasionally a lordly manor sur- 
rounded by many acres where the landscape artist's skill has 
added to nature's handiwork. 

About 7 p. m. we passed through the net across the Clyde and 
were out of submarine danger. This made us feel relieved as if 
all of our dangers were now over. We learned here that five of 
our transports were going to Glascow instead of Liverpool 
because of submarine activity. There is an unverified rumor that 

141 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

one of our transports was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland this 
morning. 

Thirteenth day. When we awoke this day the ship was tied 
up safely to the dock in Glascow. On the way here last night we 
passed the great Clyde ship-yards, visible in an interesting way, 
by reason of the extensive illuminations required for the night 
shifts of builders to work by. In one yard of giant cranes and 
derricks an immense vessel was under construction, said to be 
larger than the illfated Lusitania, which was also built on the 
Clyde. The ways deliver the ships lengthwise of the river to go 
with the current and to get room enough for the launching. Our 
dock is surrounded by warehouses that shut off a view of the 
city. Captains Farlow, Graham and I went on the ship's bridge 
which enabled us to see over. The docks are in a large basin 
dredged out in irregular blocks from the Clyde. There is little or 
no current and an abundance of floating garbage in the water. 
The basin is full of camouflaged ships. It is surrounded by an 
unbroken line of apartment houses six and seven stories high, 
with innumerable chimneys, each terminating with a row of high 
chimney-pots. These and the double decked trams that passed 
and repassed in the distance were among the novelties that I 
remember. 

I also had my first experience with the European tipping 
system. I had lost all of my United States money ; was unable 
to cash one of my travel checks, and borrowed five dollars from 
Lieutenant Shaugrau. This did not allow great munificence in 
tipping the army of ship servants. We often commented on the 
excess number of these people whom it seemed to us might be 
better employed at serving in the army. Lieutenant Bill asked 
how much I had given one of the waiters. Two dollars, I told 
him, and he said that was what he offered at his table, but the 
waiter refused to accept so little. I had no more than reached my 
state-room when my waiter appeared, handed my money back, and 
said it was not enough. I thanked him for returning it and told 
him I would keep it myself if he didn't want it, and that is the 
way we parted. Later I learned that LTncle Sam expected us to 
tip more liberally and would refund such expenditures by an offi- 
cer on a sea voyage up to fifteen dollars. 

As we left the ship about noon to entrain, a British sergeant 
at the gang-plank handed each of us "A message to you from His 

142 



RIDE BY RAIL THROUGH ENGLAND 

Majesty, King George Fifth," bearing the embossed royal coat of 
arms and "Windsor castle" followed by a facsimile of the king's 
handwriting in words as follows : 

"Soldiers of the United States : The people of the British 
Isles welcome you on your way to take your stand beside the 
armies of many nations now fighting in the Old World the great 
battles for human freedom. The allies will gain new heart and 
spirit in your company. I wish I could shake the hand of each 
one of you and bid you God speed on your mission." 

"George R. I." 

The entraining was in charge of wounded British officers, 
and the one for F company could not count a squad of eight men 
correctly. A fellow-officer apologized for him, saying his friend 
had just been discharged from the hospital and was not fit to 
work. Here we saw the women doing the heavy lifting of dock 
and longshoremen and in many respects we noted the depletion 
of man-power. Again we wondered why the droves of slackers 
en shipboard doing chamber maid work, waiting on tables, and 
the like, were not better utilized. 

When Emerson visited Glascow eighty years ago and traveled 
thence toward London by rail, as we were about to do, he was 
loud in his praise of the accommodations and speed which he said 
were far superior to anything in America. But America has so 
developed since then that our soldiers laughed at the toys which 
their engines and little compartmented cars appeared to them to 
be in comparison to our moguls and Pullmans. Nevertheless the 
train made forty and fifty miles an hour, and was very comfort- 
able. The roadbed was depressed in Glascow so only the bare 
legs of Scotch bairns lining the banks and waiving the double 
cross of Britain in one hand and the stars and stripes in the other 
for our benefit, were visible : but for many miles after leaving 
Glascow before we crossed the bleak and lonesome hills on the 
border made famous as the home region of Thomas Carlisle, we 
were entranced by the trim hedges, "the penciled fields," the vil- 
lages in stone that told of centuries of prosperity and good taste, 
and the smooth and level roads connecting them that made our 
Lincoln and Dixie highways for motoring look cheap and 
unromantic. 

We crossed into England at Carlisle, journeyed thence to 
Manchester and almost paralleled the west coast down to Crewes 

143 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

opposite Liverpool. We stopped well on in the night in the big 
railway sheds at Birmingham, where, as at Glascow and other 
places, where the halt was long enough, coffee and the inevitable 
cold meat pies were served to all who would partake. The team- 
work of the British Red Cross everywhere was excellent. Girls 
flocked to talk to the Americans, many not out of their teens yet, 
and all so eager for souvenirs that the officers feared their ad- 
mirers would take the newly cloned Sam Browne belts away from 
them. One of the young ladies, on Lieutenant Johnson's invita- 
tion that she go to France with us. settled herself down in our 
compartment so long that we began to fear that she was taking us 
in earnest. The people seemed as much amused with our pronun- 
ciation as we were with their queer English. "Don't see why 
they couldn't be taught to speak correctly while they were about 
it," was the comment of the American soldier. We detrained at 




AVE MARCHED IS FRONT OF KING ALFRED'S STATUE 



Winchester early Sunday morning and marched, in the rain, 
through the winding streets of that quaint old town. The early 

144 



CAMPING AT WINNAL DOWN 

milk-maid with horse and cart was dealing the lacteal into open 
mouthed pitchers and crocks, which she left on the door-steps of 
neat red and white brick residences, where the cat and dog could 
sample it as in good old American days before our Boards of 
Health required milk to be delivered in closed bottles. We 
marched in front of King Alfred's statue, then column left 
across the bridge by the old mill where the east gate of the ancient 
walled city stood, then climbed the road up St. Giles. The camp 
was at Winnal Down, four miles out of town and up hill. As 
soon as the soldiers had rid themselves of their packs and had 
breakfasted, they begged paper from the Y. M. C. A. and began 
writing letters home. "Some of them," we quote, "told what a 
fine time they were having, and others told the truth." 

Private S. writes: 

"I wish I could do justice to the beautiful scenery we have 
passed through. The last days on the water were monotonous — 
each just like the one before — sky and water and a crowded ship ; 
we have waited in vain for the first signs of land. As I lay sleep- 
ing last night I was awakened suddenly by the slam of a door and 
thought I heard the words, "Yes you can see a lighthouse on the 
starboard side." Some guard must have announced it. I didn't 
know if I were dreaming or not, but rather than miss a chance I 
slipped on my overcoat and shoes (all that was necessary for I 
have not undressed for many a day) and went on deck. Sure 
enough, there was a lighthouse visible, throwing first the red and 
then the white. I stood at the rail and watched it ever so long. 
The night was cold but fine ; the sea not rough, and the regu- 
larity of the flashes made me think so much of the nights when 
you and I have watched the lighthouse flashes across the water 
together. This morning I was up bright and early, but what has 
happened since cannot be described without giving away our pres- 
ent location. I have seen some of the prettiest sights of my life — 
seascape blending with landscape — the scenery is wonderful. The 
villages are very pretty and remind me so much of Little Current 
and the other villages of the Georgian Bay." 



'45 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



CHAPTER XVII 



A VISIT TO WINCHESTER 



On Monday I was given permission to visit Winchester. Had 
to walk the four miles to town, but regretted that I had not time 
and leave to walk twenty miles further on to Stonehenge, where 
the temple of the Druids makes the Roman history of Winchester, 
and the writing of Domesday Book events of but yesterday by 
comparison. 

Passed St. Catherine's Hill on my left and St. Giles' Hill at 
the eastern edge of Winchester, noted as the place for annual 
fairs in ye olden times, when people came from all Europe to 
trade. The celebration in 1901 of the lapse of one thousand years 
since the crowning of King Alfred, was held on this hill now 
kept as a city park. Winchester is beautiful from here in its fore- 
ground of green trees enlivened by the red tile roofs ; the massive 
grey Cathedral conspicuous with its tower and pinnacles ; Wyke- 
ham's College to the left, with its "two Warden's Towers," con- 
trasting in grace with the heavier tower of the Cathedral, and in 
the background other Hampshire hills that blend from green to 
blue. But the best part of Europe, to me, lies not in its scenery — 
we have as fine at home — but in the memories aroused by its his- 
torical past. Winchester breathes the spirit of the centuries ; a 
city "ruled upon skille," for a thousand years, and still retaining 
in its hospitals, schools and religious institutions the dress and 
customs of feudal days. The ghosts of Saxon King Kynegils, 
who listened and first accepted the Gospel message, of Egbert, 
Cnut the Dane, and King Arthur's Round table haunt you here. 
The Romans built and dwelt here and we tread where Alfred the 
Great and William the Conqueror trod ; where the last of the 
Saxon kings was led to execution ; where Henry I. ruled ; where 
Matilda and Stephen fought ; where John was absolved by the 
Pope for his unkingly practices, and where Henry III. held wild 
revel. Bishop Beaufort, who helped to condemn Joan of Arc to 

146 



OLD CASTLE HALL AT WINCHESTER 

be burned, lived here. Henry VIII. , Charles V., Mary and Philip, 
of Spain ; Queen Elizabeth, Raleigh, James I., Charles I., Oliver 
Cromwell and a host of statesmen and church dignitaries visited, 
or were prominent in their day in this little town of Winchester, 
to which the eccentricities of war have brought me from a conti- 
nent unknown to many of its ancient kings. Only a man of stone 
could be indifferent to this place where so much of great history 
had its beginning. 

I walked on as I felt like it through the windings of High 
street, stopping to study a quaint building here and to admire a 
bit of green and bloom drooping over on ancient wall, or growing 
out of the joints of it ; to read the odd signs and to study and per- 
haps talk to one of its citizens or guests until I found myself at the 
West gate. This is close to the castle and is also a block house 
strong enough to hold against human enemies in the siege of 1666, 
but not able to keep out the plague that entered and made the city 
a charnel house, which an ugly monument near the gate bears wit- 
ness to. Three other gates as interesting as this were torn down 
to get them out of the way of traffic in a former period of util- 
itarianism which took with it, also the tomb of Alfred the Great, 
and made other ruins much to the regret now of the city and 
Nation. It is related that the West Gate was spared only because 
a large upper room in it was in use as a popular ale-house, an 
argument in favor of the saving power of strong drink. 

The room now is used as a museum where an old soldier will 
show one the lance of Sir Launcelot, a rope made from the Golden 
Fleece, by King Arthur, and many other articles in "a collection 
of rare local interest," in proportion to the size of the tip you give 
him. He had just been out "having one" on a couple of the 
doughboys when I arrived and was consequently in fine fettle, 
which accounts for much of the local color that I am able to pass 
on here to the reader. 

At the distance of a good hop-skip-and-jump from the West 
Gate is Castle Hall, where the rush of history makes the mind 
reel. The interior with its columns is as majectic as the cathedrals 
of France which I have since seen enough of to qualify me as a 
connoisseur. Here the Frenchman De Monfort, who first gave 
the Englishmen the idea of a representative assembly, caused the 
first parliament to be held nearly eight hundred years ago. Here 
Henry VIII. received Emperor Charles V. with great ceremony ; 

147 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

here Sir Walter Raleigh was tried and unjustly condemned, and 
here, hanging high on its western wall out of reach of souvenir 
hunters, is King Arthur's Round Table that Henry VIII. and his 
guest, Charles V., of Spain, were credulous enough to believe 
King Arthur and his knights, Sir Launcelot, Sir Galahaut, Sir 
Bedivera and Sir Kay, sat down to as Tennyson has told us they 
did. In fact the four knights carved their names on the Round 
Table as school boys carved theirs on their desks ; their names 
are there and what is the use denying that they did it, while listen- 
ing to King Arthur's lectures. 

A railing twenty feet 
from the wall, built, I 
suppose, to keep sou- 
venir hunters like the 
Americans, from whit- 
tling the table to pieces 
or adding their names 
to the Knightly list, in- 
sures the enchantment 
of distance to a view of 
a much advertised piece 
of furniture, and really 
adds to the enjoyment 
of a situation in which 
too close familiaritv 

HANGING HIGH ON THE CASTLE WALL OUT -' 

op reach of souvenir hunters is king might weaken interest 

ARTHUR'S ROUND TABLE & 

The authorities came near tearing down the City Cross in 
High street in their campaign to modernize Winchester, and had 
an order to that effect in the hands of the street commissioner or 
whatever they call that factotem ; but the people rose in near-riot 
and saved it. It is. popularly known as "the butter market," be- 
cause the country folk were in the habit of placing their crocks 
of butter on the steps of the shrine on market-days to be sampled 
by the good wives of Winchester. Perhaps anticipated interfer- 
ence with this custom is what saved the quaint old structure, 
which does block the sidewalk and is badly out of repair. 

I secured the above information pertaining to the dairy indus- 
try of Winchester from a seedy individual with a red nose, and, 




148 



WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL 

true to his species, he took advantage of our slight acquaintance 
to strike me for a loan with which to buy a cup of coffee. Then 
he showed me Godbegot house, which I had passed in High street, 
and confided that it was a sanctuary where those obnoxious to 
the law might take refuge and the police couldn't touch them. I 
promised to keep that in mind because I might need a place of 
refuge before I got out of town. 

Next was the ancient church of St. Lawrence hid in a little 
crooked street leading past the public square to the Cathedral, and 
then I passed the town museum where I turned in, but of all I 
saw there, I can only remember a bit of mosaic flooring laid by 
the Romans. 

Of the many points of interest in Winchester the Cathedral 
easily takes first place. Within the limits of the church close the 
Romans built a temple to Apollo ; then the Saxons built according 
to their ideas, which the first Norman bishop appointed by the 
Conqueror, regarded as dwarfed and inadequate. He tore down 
and built according to plans of his own, leaving the Saxon crypt 
and nothing more. The shape of the Cathedral is cruciform, but 
only in the north and south trancepts can the heavy, joyless Nor- 
man masonry be seen. The rest was changed or covered up to 
suit the ideas of beauty and grace of later Plantagenet taste. 

I met a pleasant gentleman who was about to unlock the front 
door of the Cathedral. He handed me a wrought iron key a foot 
long, and suggested that I unlock and open the door. The latter 
was of solid oak massive and heavily ironed so anyone opening it 
might expect to exert himself in the accomplishment. But I was 
trained and willing to try. The key entered easily; the bolt shot 
back as readily, and the weight of my two hundred and twenty 
pounds against the released door made it fly open to my surprise 
and to the delight of the slender gentleman who had suggested the 
experiment. He turned out to be one of the ushers or guides, and 
dilated on the perfect workmanship that made the operation so 
easy. That guide and I became great chums on short acquaint- 
ance. He confided to me that he was the best informed man in 
his line in England, and Westminster Abbey had been trying to 
get him but he wouldn't go because here at Winchester thev had 
real dead ones, the bones of kings and queens that were great, 
centuries before Westminster was ever thought of. "Here," he 
said pointing to the tops of many high windows, "you see patches 

149 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



of stained glass that is the original fourteenth century article ; 
very rare and wonderful in its coloring as you observe. They 
escaped the destruction of Cromwell's soldiers, who used the nave 
here as a stable and only escaped because the men were not able 
to throw stones straight enough to knock them all out. After the 
Rebellion the broken pieces were gathered up and set in the west 
windows," and he pointed to the large windows, filled with the 
same glass in crazy-patch patterns. "All down these aisles," he 
continued, "noted people had been buried and their graves marked 
with brass inscriptions and designs ; but most of the brass had 
been pried loose and knocked off by Cromwell's men to show 
contempt for Established church." 

Many of the inscrip- 
tions to which he point- 
ed were badly used, 
others not so badly, 
while some were whole 
and looked as good as 
new. "Yes" the guide 
replied, when attention 
was called to the latter, 
"interments have been 
made here in recent 
years. The inscriptions 
to which you have just 
called attention, mark 
the graves of distin- 
guished soldiers of the 
Boer war. But Win- 
chester Cathedral is far 
more exclusive than 
Westminster Abbey." 

From this, I take it, 
only the oldest and most 
select of English nobil- 
ity may rest their bones 
at Winchester. There are such degrees of greatness that it is too 
bad Gray did not write his immortal Elegy here. 

Several American officers, and women connected with our 
army service, entered the church and joined us. As we walked 

150 




A SEEDY INDIVIDUAL INFORMS ME THAT 

THE CITY CROSS IS POPULARLY KNOWN 

AS "THE BUTTER MARKET" 



ORIGIN OF THE PAWNBROKER'S SIGN 

down the middle of the nave the forest of lofty columns that rose 
and towered above us branching and interlacing at the roof, was 
so impressive that none of us spoke or cared to. Once the guide 
called attention to hooks high up on the unbroken pillars where 
tapestries were hung for "the coronation of kings, the marriages 
and burials of princes ; the consecration of bishops," and we were 
reminded that we were walking where the rulers of church and 
state had trod in most solemn procession. The spell was only 
broken when we reached the baptismal font, an example of 
eleventh century art done in black marble. Reliefs on its four 
sides represent scenes from the life of St. Nicholas — our good old 
Santa Claus. Here our guide said the babies of the parish for 
five hundred years past have been baptized in water taken from a 
well in the old Saxon crypt dug a thousand years ago. The font 
is about three feet square and two feet deep, and the side toward 
the middle of the church has St. Nicholas giving three purses of 
gold to a poor man, who, according to our guide, had three daugh- 
ters unable to marry because the old man was too poor to give 
them a dower. If they were as homely in life as they were on the 
font no wonder the fellows refused to take them without a bonus. 
According to our guide, the thrifty parent started a pawn-shop 
with the gold, and from the three bags originated the idea of the 
three balls known to the world as the sign of the pawn-broker. I 
have heard other stories about the origin of the pawn-broker's 
sign, but none supported by any degree of proof. Here are the 
three bags of gold, in a carving five hundred years old at least, 
and, as with Sir Arthur's Round Table, I give this story credence 
over those that have nothing to support them at all. 

Our attention was called to the columns near the steps of the 
choir, where the daring alterations begun by Bishop Edyngton 
and continued by William, of Wykeham, were left incomplete — 
perhaps to show us how it was done — in part by chiseling away 
the heavy Norman columns and in other places by tearing out and 
rebuilding them anew. The added sense of height, of beauty, and 
of impressiveness, are made apparent, and they strikingly illus- 
trate the genius of the later architect who visualized all this in 
advance. 

To emphasize the comparatively small stature of the men of 
the Conqueror's time our guide seated us on a heavy oak bench on 
which the monks of the Cathedral sat and gossiped in their rest 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

periods. Our knees were half-way to our chins by reason of the 
lowness of the bench. This bench faced the south transept, where 
there was much scaffolding to support the roof while many of the 
ancient timbers, eaten through and through by a destructive 
grub, were being replaced, and in a small room in this same part 
of the Cathedral we were shown the tomb of Sir Izaac Walton, 
the angler. Here our guide came forward with another of his 
illuminating stories, to the effect that when notable people visited 
the fisherman he invited them to fish with him in the Itchen, a 
small stream with a large reputation, just outside the town, and 
for bait, he kept a number of dead rats suspended and fly-blown, 
from which he extracted a goodly quantity of fat maggots, and 
that he always carried his bait in his mouth. 

This prepared us to ascend to the choir where we were shown 
the little stalls on each side with carved seats where the monks 
sat and chanted their lives away. The carvings in oak were done 
by them and they had their little jokes by carving each other in 
characture-busts on the ends of the arms. One had a wagging 
tongue, which the guide wagged for us by pressing with his 
pencil. 

Here we walked over the plain tomb of William II., who must 
have been a lover of music or hoped the noise would frighten 
away the powers of evil, and in a room kept under lock and key 
for some reason not apparent or explained to us, we were shown 
souvenirs of bloody Mary including the chair she sat on for four 
hours while the ceremony of her marriage to Philip of Spain was 
being conducted. Further on in the east end of the Cathedral are 
a number of very elaborate chantry chapels, each containing the 
tomb of its founder, and each vicing with the rest in the elaborate- 
ness of its English and French medieval sculpture. Most of them 
were greatly damaged by Cromwell's men except that of Bishop 
Beaufort, afterwards a cardinal, whose chapel was spared by the 
favor of the leader of the rebels who had gone to school to him. 
Next, the guide took us down in the basement, or crypt, where 
the frescoes of the early Saxons or Normans were as bizarre and 
crude as the writings of Beowulf, and told us a story about some 
reconstruction work on part of the foundation that was giving 
way. We had swallowed the fables about the origin of the sign 
of the pawn-broker and Sir Izaac Walton's bait-carrying idiosyn- 
crasies without protest, but when he told us how divers had to 

152 



WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

be employed to lay cement foundations under sixteen feet of 
water for the repairs of the Cathedral, and the only water here- 
abouts was the little Itchen, we asked him if he were dreaming 
about St. Mark's Cathedral at Venice, or telling us of the early 
lake-dwellers in Switzerland that he had evidently been reading 
about? But he insisted that he was relating the truth in regard 
to Winchester Cathedral. We had enough. We let him lead us 
back to the main floor, where he collected his tip, and hurried off 
to repeat his fictions to a long column of enlisted men filing in 
at the front door. 

I next turned to Winchester College, where William of Wyke- 
ham established the first public school not an appendage of a 
monastic or collegiate institution. Passing College Brew House 
and through the old Outer Gateway into a large covered passage 
I was admonished by a sign to ring for the lodge porter. He came 
at his leisure, waited until enough others had arrived to be worth 
his while, then led us through the Middle Gate into Chamber 
Court and mediaevalism where the people must still doff their 
hats to the virgin over the gate, and where the scholars, watched 
over by a master, are dressed in the style of the Thirteenth 
Century. 

We were shown the chapel and wandered through the beauti- 
ful cloisters behind it ; then climbed to the "hall" with the beam 
ceiling, carved wainscoting, and high end-platform, where the 
founder's portrait hangs above. These high platforms, or 
"thrones," are conspicuous features wherever the scholars are 
wont to assemble. They are the official seats of the masters, who 
enforce the world-famous motto of the school, that freely trans- 
lated from the original Latin reads : 

"Learn, or leave, or stay and be licked." 

The alumni here are fond of preserving their memory by white 
enamel plates several inches wide and a foot or more long bearing 
their names in Old English, and nailed to the walls until every 
available inch appears to be covered. 

Walking back from here toward the Cathedral I passed "the 
glorious Old Close Wall," high enough in all conscience to turn 
back any but a New York hook and ladder company, and over its 
moss-covered area were patches of blooming flowers that gave 
it all the glory it had. I tried to sketch in front of the Cathedral, 
but was driven to cover under one of the magnificent trees that 

153 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



make the place famous, by one of the ever-frequent showers of 
this locality, and tried to start a little conversation with a young 
English woman of the better class, who had sought shelter under 
my tree. 

"You have a beautiful city," I ventured. 

She looked at me as if about to resent a familiarity, then 
changed her mind and drawled: "Oh-h, do you-h think so-h?" 

"Yes indeed. The moss-covered walls, the quaint architecture, 
the tile roofs, the grand trees, and even the crooked streets, all 
look as if they had been fitting themselves together for a thousand 
years. Don't you admire it?" 

"No-h I cawnt say I evah saw anything to interest me in 
Winchestah." 

"Possibly my enthu- 
siasm is due to inexperience 
— this is the first time I've 
been here," and realizing 
that I had not touched the 
right chord, I tried again by 
asking, "Are you interested 
in the war?" 

"No-h I'm tiahd of it — 
we'i e been in fouah yeahs, 
don't chew-know!" 

Her tone was what the 
fiction-writers call "wither- 
ing sarcasm." She meant 
to give me a national cut I 
imagine for our slowness in 
getting into the war, and a 
personal one for daring to talk to her without an introduction. 
But why so much formality between friends. I withered to the 
extent of giving up further conversational efforts and her image 
has ever recurred to me as typically English. A French woman 
would have been too kind-hearted to snub an American like that. 
I walked back to camp in time to take command of the com- 
pany for the evening while Lieutenants Johnson and Wasserman 
made their visit to Winchester. We were expecting orders to 
leave on short notice so I had to keep in close touch with regi- 
mental headquarters located in wooden barracks with a front 

154 




"YOU HAVE A BKATTIFUL, CITY 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL TO FRANCE 

porch. A half-dozen orderlies lounging in front jumped to at- 
tention as I entered. There were no orders yet, so the adjutant 
said, and I went outside to make up my mind whether to wait or 
go back to the company. The orderlies sprang to attention again 
in a manner that was annoying to one so tired as I after a hard 
day's sightseeing, and I gave the instant command that suited my 
own inclination — "Rest." But before I reached the edge of the 
porch an orderly who had followed me out saluted with : 

"Sir, the commanding officer presents his compliments and 
would like to see the Lieutenant." 

I reentered and Colonel Bain demanded : 

"Why did you give the command, 'Rest' when those men 
should have remained at attention?" 

Were you ever put in a position where what was going to hap- 
pen to you right quickly depended upon how much quicker your 
brain could formulate a saving answer? Mine saved me once 
more by prompting : 

"Sir, I'm waiting here for F company's travel orders and only 
stepped outside for fresh air." 

That made it all right if I intended to remain a while instead 
of passing on, which in fact I hadn't determined upon until this 
incident helped suddenly to make up my mind. 

Several hours later the order came to entrain next morning. 
We counter-marched to Winchester and made the ten miles to 
Southampton by rail ; then loafed until 5 p. m., and watched the 
unloading of stretcher after stretcher of wounded soldiers from a 
hospital-boat that had just made port. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE ENGLISH CHANNEL AND LE HAVRE 

The regiment crossed the channel on two small ships ; the 
"Nopatin" and the "Monas Queen." Ours was the "Monas 
Queen," on which there was scant standing room for the men. 

155 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

If they slept that night they must have slept upright or in hori- 
zontal layers. The officers had staterooms, the doors to which 
could not be closed because of obstructions in the form of diag- 
onal beams that had been put through the openings to brace the 
ship which had been built for calmer waters than the English 
Channel. 

Our boat left Southampton at 6 p. m., passed the Isle of 
Wight, a low and treeless coast so far as we could see, and 
reached the open channel by dark, where all who went to sleep 
after that were certainly well rocked. It was about this month 
that the Mayflower and the Speedwell sailed out of Southampton 
with our Pilgrim Fathers aboard. What changes in three hundred 
years ! 

Some time that night we reached France. It was misty and 
dimly lighted when I crawled on deck to find we were tied fast 
at the mouth of the river Seine. Le Havre was the place, which 
I am informed, was originally called Havre (or harbor) de Grace. 
I remember that because of a town by the same name near the 
mouth of our Susquehanna at home. This one at the river-gate to 
Paris got its name from a church, and, because it is so modern — 
only four hundred years old — its streets were laid out before the 
houses were built and were plotted chiefly in straight lines around 
the docks. This is referred to in the books as quite out of the 
ordinary for a French city to have straight streets, because, we 
are told, the older towns developed along "natural" lines. Here 
and there a house built at the owner's fancy on irregular paths 
that in time became the built-up crooked streets we know today. 

We got an exceedingly early start in debarking because no- 
body had undressed the night before, and there was no breakfast 
to bother with. We marched over long stretches of dock to which 
were tied submarines, submarine chasers, and a great variety of 
naval vessels, besides the camouflaged ships that we were most 
familiar with. Le Havre next to Marsailles, is the greatest 
seaport of France, and has been an important naval base since the 
first Napoleon's time. We crossed innumerable bridges that 
brought us finally to paved streets with many-storied business 
houses on each side, but no sky-scrapers as would be in evidence 
in a town of this importance in the states. The French may boast 
of the straightness of the streets of Le Havre, but they do not say 

156 



OUR MARCH THROUGH LE HAVRE 




WE MARCHED THROUGH THE STRAIGHT 

STREETS OF LE HARVE, BESIEGED BY 

BEGGING CHILDREN 



how narrow and short the straight parts are. We found many 
angles to turn, and discovered early that we were elbowing people 
out of the way, who 
spoke a language we 
did not understand — 
that is, except the cry 
of a mob of boys and 
girls who yelled "pen- 
ny" as they held out 
their dirty hands and 
even tried to hold the 
soldiers until they re- 
sponded with the coin. 

When we halted for 
the regulation rest we 
were in a wide street in 
a nice residential por- 
tion at its intersection 
with Rue Victor Hugo. 
I didn't then know that 
every self-respecting 
French town has a Victor Hugo street, and tried to ask some of 
the natives where the great writer's house was. 

Hardly had we halted than scores of women and girls with 
baskets of fruit appeared and we were soon as busy as a street 
carnival at home. All of a sudden there was a female scatter- 
ment caused by a gendarme in uniform, who drove the fair mer- 
chants away because they were profiteering — charging thirty 
cents a pound for grapes. But our men were hungry and thirsty, 
and as soon as the policemen passed on the women came back and 
sold out all they had. 

Before we halted again we had marched along a body of water 
so wide that no opposite shore was visible. Between us and the 
water on our left was a bathing beach, and to our right a long, 
high bluff, thick with casinos, terraced gardens, and elaborate 
architecture — a fashionable summer resort, no doubt, in times of 
peace, but now deserted. 

The boulevard we were traversing led up by an easy grade, 
but after a mile or more we turned abruptly to the right into a 
steep street defined by high walls through the gates of which and 

157 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

over their tops we caught glimpses of chataux surrounded by 
Edens of delight so tempting that I ventured in at the Villa of 
La Rosa near which the troops halted to rest. 

Lieutenant Bill accompanied me. We were met at the porter's 
lodge by a little woman in battle-ship grey, with whom we ex- 
changed smiles, and the few French words we knew. 

"Bonjour madam! entrer? — combein? — tresbein — beaucoup 
merci !" 

She beckoned us on and deluged us with a greeting that must 
have been friendly, judging from her manner, but from her words 
we understood nothing. Presently a head gardener came forward 
and we tried to talk to him. By some kind of mind reading pro- 
cess it was imparted to us that the grand "maison" was closed 
because the owner and his family were in the army ; but the free- 
dom of the gardens was at our disposal. 

The latter were in terraces reached by winding roads lined 
with flowers and ornamental trees. Nearly hid in an upper corner 
by splendid foliage was a green-house; below a terrace of rare 
roses from which the gardener presented us each a bloom ; below 
the rose terrace a tennis court, out of commission, and just inside 
the high front wall an extensive garage empty and deserted. 

This was only one beautiful villa that we were permitted to 
explore out of many equally or more beautiful that we caught 
glimpses of through gateway-vistas as we passed — all sur- 
rounded by high stone walls over which the flags and flowers 
hung, in many places. 

I gave my rose to private Tilton to send to his wife, and then 
we began to climb a hill that the men with heavy packs declared 
was perpendicular. The road did wind with many horseshoe 
bends that I cut off by climbing across and thereby lost liaison 
with F company which Lieutenant Johnson was ably leading. 

When the men arrived at camp B, Base I, a "rest camp," on 
top of that high bluff, they needed rest but found mud over shoe 
top deep that they had to line up in, and they wondered what kind 
of engineers had planned such 'drainage. It was near noon before 
they were assigned to curiously camouflaged tents too small to 
accommodate half the number put in them. They couldn't lie 
down but were greatly comforted by the knowledge that they were 
closest to a series of deep narrow trenches in which they were 

158 



THE PRIVATE SOLDIER'S VIEWPOINT 

instructed to take refuge in case of an air attack, the possibilities 
of which were impressed on all by numerous signs like this : 



AIR CRAFT ALARM 

6 GUNS WILL BE FIRED 

CHURCH BELLS RUNG 

BUGLES SOUNDED 



There was a very attractive Y. M. C. A. hut here where offi- 
cers were sold a good dinner for 80 cents. The soldiers were 
served the accustomed "slum" which was accepted for once with- 
out complaint by appetites whetted by a twenty-four hour 
vacation. 

By good fortune I was detailed to take fifty men to Le Havre 
at 7 p. m. to move baggage. We were conveyed in army trucks, 
which saved a hard march. After we had transferred the baggage 
we prepared and placed three days' rations for the regiment in 
cars side-tracked and waiting for their passengers. It is always 
interesting to get the viewpoint of the enlisted man on what is 
taking place, and I am able to quote the following from a "His- 
tory of F company, Three Hundred and Ninth Engineers," pub- 
lished since its members returned to America. 

"Later in the day a report was published that 'E' and 'F' com- 
panies would leave that night for a three days' train ride. There 
was no question but that Italy was the destination, for what part 
of France was that far distant? Little was known of the speed 
of 'side door Pullmans' at that time. At 8 o'clock that night the 
two companies began to march to Le Havre under the leadership 
of 'Commander' Johnson. This was one of the hardest hikes ever 
taken by the company since its organization. Arriving at 'la gare' 
the soldiers found their Pullmans already made up. They con- 
sisted of a box-car for every forty men. In these cars had been 
placed rations for the journey. One wondered how two score 
men could confine themselves and all their equipment in so small a 
space. With Americans nothing is impossible, so at 11 o'clock the 
'special' pulled out of Le Havre, each car taxed to its capacity. 
My, what a night ! Kriesel was too long for the space allotted 
him ; Gialdini was too broad ; Karaker would not sleep so close to 

159 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



any one, so he sat up. Still the train moved on. At dawn typical 
scenes of France presented themselves. For miles around could 
be seen vineyards, pastures and fertile fields. Here and there 
were noticed groups of stone and cement buildings. With these 
interesting sights to view, every man wanted an outside seat. 
This was denied some, but there were a few who scarcely took 
time to eat for fear of losing their commanding position by the 
window. The meals on this trip consisted of the customary army 
bill-of-fare : beans, corned beef, 'petit' jam and bread. These 
delicacies were rationed out by the ranking sergeants who always 

had the interest of the 
men at heart. Conse- 
quently they never al- 
lowed the privates to 
devour more than was 
good for them. About 
noon the next day, 
the train passed 
through Versailles. 
This is as close as 
many of the men ever 
came to Paris, and the 
front. The route then 
turned toward the 
southwest and at 10 
o'clock that night a 
stop was made at Tours. Here the Red Cross served coffee 
and sandwiches. This was a Godsend, and so the Red Cross 
proved to be at all times. Another night passed with all its 
vicissitudes. Morning found the company well on its way 
toward southern France. On all sides were seen the thing for 
which this country is noted ; acres and acres of vineyards. How 
enticing this luscious fruit looked to the young American, accus- 
tomed to all the comforts of a typical American home. The effect 
of war could be seen very plainly, for scarcely ever was young or 
middle-aged man noticed in the country or small villages through 
which the train passed. All the work was carried on by women 
and children. The signs of grief seemed to be present in every 
one's face. Great were the burdens carried by these once happy 
and care-free people. 

160 




OUR ENLISTED MEN ENJOYING THE NIGHT 

ACCOMMODATIONS OF A "40 HOMMES, 8 

CHEVEAUX" PULLMAN 



VILLAGE OF ST. GERMAIN 

"At 6 130 Friday afternoon the train stopped for the last time, 
and the battalion detrained at St. Astier. For almost forty-eight 
hours the route had been due south, and the Three Hundred and 
Ninth Engineers were now only eighty miles from the Spanish 
border. Lieutenant Minturn was in charge of the company, Lieu- 
tenant Johnson having gone ahead to arrange for the billets. A 
guide had been expected to meet the troops at this point, but failed 
to appear, so worn out from loss of sleep and three days of con- 
stant travel, the company started out over the hills of southern 
France in search of the village of St. Germain. No one had any 
idea where he was going or what he would find when he arrived 
there. Some thought they were marching toward an American 
camp, others that they would pitch tents along the side of the 
road, while a few looked forward to billets. Never had hills 
seemed so steep or roads so hard as on that march. To add to the 
misery it began to rain, and whenever a cluster of white houses 
came into sight, the men were sure that their journey was at an 
end. It was at this time that the indomitable spirit instilled by- 
Captain Kelly asserted itself. The company arrived at St. Ger- 
main with full strength, after a hike of about seven miles, while 
trucks were picking up men from other units who were unable to 
stand the strain. The only 'F' company casualty was George 
Black. When the marching column halted at the edge of St. 
Germain the lanky blacksmith started a clog dance. The weight 
of his pack caused him to lose a step and over he went into a 
ditch. Black was rescued after some difficulty, and continued in 
line with the aid of a cane." 



CHAPTER XIX 

OUR FIRST BILLETING IN FRANCE 

F company was in the lead followed by E. We halted our 
commands with the head of F under a big tree at the middle of the 
village. Not even the American billeting officer, known as the 
town major, was there to greet us, and Lieutenant Lardner and I 
walked up hill to the mayor's office, which was closed for the 
night ; hut we found the town major, who roomed in the building, 

161 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

and learned that he was not expecting us for a day or two. But he 
gave us billeting directions — F company at the neighboring vil- 
lage of Aeuriac. 

Colonel Bain, accompanied by Colonel Kruger, of division 
headquarters, arrived while we were talking to the billeting offi- 
cer, and as we came away Colonel Kruger remarked : 

"Minturn, I have bad news for you. There's an order at 
headquarters taking you away from your regiment." 

"What for colonel?" I asked. 

"Instructor at the A. E. F. Army Schools." 

I had greatly appreciated the five months close contact with 
the men of F company, and if they were to see service at the 
front as we all supposed, I preferred to remain with them and 
said so. 

A small boy volunteered to guide F company to Aeuriac and 
he soon had us climbing a steep hill that our tired soldiers, groan- 
ing under their packs, declared must lead straight up — they hoped 
to Heaven — but were so suspicious of ever} thing on this side that 
they had scant hopes of finding anything good. The road was so 
old that travel had worn it down shoulder-deep. 

There was a leveler road, as we learned afterwards, which 
would have been a little longer, that we might have taken, but 
we then knew nothing of it and followed our young guide. 

It was that dark when we arrived we couldn't tell a manure 
pile from a cow shed. A Frenchman brought a lantern by the 
light of which we read chalked numbers on the stable doors indi- 
cating the estimated capacity. There were dirt floors and no 
straw, and details were sent back to St. Germain for additional 
blankets. Some of the detailed men returned by midnight and 
more made themselves beds by the roadside, where they slept 
sweetly until morning. But next day we got straightened out as 
satisfactorily as billeting in a French farming village would per- 
mit, and we staid there long enough to make some of our men 
declare they would never be able again to pass a cow shed or a 
pig pen without wanting to turn in and make themselves at home. 
About 2 o'clock that night I made my first acquaintance with the 
excellent beds of France — proverbially good whether in homes of 
high or low estate. This was at the Villa of La Source, some 
three miles from Aeuriac. M. Mauze and his wife did their part 

162 



M. MAUZE OF LA SOURCE 




by taking a score of soldiers and a half-dozen officers into their 
commodious home. They were refined and hospitable, but the 
chief attractions to our officers were the two charming daughters, 
the elder of whom had studied English at school and was the 
family interpreter. If we made as many humorous mistakes with 
our French as she with her English, I cannot wonder at the 
extreme good nature to the verge of suppressed merriment, of our 
hosts whenever we talked to them in their own language. The 
fiance of this 
young lady was 
in the French 
army where he 
had been twice 
wounded since 
he began fight- 
ing, in 1914, 
and the whole 
family were in- 
terested in the 
American sol- 
diers. 

We assured them that we had our own mess and would not 
impose on their hospitality further than to enjoy their excellent 
beds, but they insisted that we partake of their cake and wine at 
least, and delighted in telling us over and over what the French 
was for "spoon," "door-knob," "picture," "napkin," and all of the 
things we had to learn the names of like little children. 

My only regret was that F company was so far away that we 
could not get to Aeuriac in time to stand reveille at 5 145 in the 
morning, and Lieutenant Wasserman and I were forced to move 
into St. Germain. Eventually I occupied a bed in the same room 
with Lieutenant Rose, our regimental dental officer, who gained a 
great professional reputation with the French people thereabouts 
by reason of his skill on some of them. He made no charge and in 
one particular instance a young woman whom he had relieved of a 
toothache insisted that he dine with her family. 

Somebody had to lead Rose home that night, and he woke me 
up by repeating: "No — not on your life — Fm not drunk — watch 

163 



MAKING WINE AT AEURIAC. COMPANY F KITCHEN 
WAS IN THE YARD OUTSIDE THE DOOR WHERE 
THE DOG STANDS. THE BOY STOMPING GRAPES IN 
THE TUB WAS CLEANING OUT THE COW STABLE A 
FEW MINUTES BEFORE AND DID NOT WASH HIS 
FEET 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

me!" But he had on his clothes, boots and a ripping headache 
next morning. He explained later that he didn't drink near as 
much champaign as Chaplains Miller and O'Brien, who were bil- 
leted with his hosts, and were both at the dinner. 

The French people, it has often been remarked, drink much 
wine and little water. "Facts about France," a book relied on by 
the American overseas soldier, says, (page 46) : 

"A second rule of health is : Never drink water, unless you 
know it is safe and even then drink very little of it." This rule 
was followed by our army there to the extent that we were per- 
mitted and many times advised by our superior officers to drink- 
wine if we couldn't get our dearly beloved chlorinated water, 
which everybody despised. 

A few nights after his dinner party Lieutenant Rose decided 
to take a bucket bath in our room, and to heat the water and take 
the chill off the air, he built a rousing wood fire in a fire-place 
with which the room was provided. 

ft was on the second floor ; the windows had no shutters or 
blinds, and the bright light from the fire streamed out against the 
white walls of the adjacent buildings in such an unusual manner 
that the residents of Germain decided our house was burning up. 
An excited crowd of them gathered in the street below crying, 
"Feu!" "Incendie!" etc., until they broke in the outer door in 
their excitement and came floundering and yelling up the stairs. 
Rose, standing stark naked in his G. I. bucket of water, wondered 
what the row was all about, and was nearly as excited as the pop- 
ulace when they shouted in French and began pounding on his 
door. 

"What the h — ontray !" he yelled and as the door was not 
locked it opened readily to an effort by one of his visitors and a 
dozen heads crowed to get a good look. 

Then they broke into a laugh, "Oui ! oui ! Le bain ! Bonsoir 
Americana !" and stumbled back into the street again. 

St. Germain has the crooked streets and other earmarks of 
antiquity, including a chateau of its own, with a moat around it. 
The buildings are not so imposing as the Chateau of Neuvic, not 
far away ; but the inside walls have a finish that cannot be dupli- 
cated in all France. They are elaborately frescoed by an old doc- 
tor, who was still living at the chateau, and entertained us with 
an exhibition of his small canvases. His perseverance and indns- 

164 



ART AT ST. GERMAIN 

try are greatly to his credit. Some of our soldiers declared the 
old gentleman was "nuts" but if so he has been that way a long 
time, for it has required many years to cover all this wall space as 
he has done, with such attention to detail. Generations hence this 




A DOZEN HEADS CROWDED TO GET A GOOD LOOK 



crudity of expression may appeal to the Epsteins of that day and 
St. Germain became a mecca for the devotees of true art. 

Besides its wine, the principal industry of the town is the man- 
ufacture of cloth slippers. These are worn on the street inside of 
wooden shoes, which the wearers cleverly step out of and leave 
beside the door upon entering a house. 

The following prices are posted by the French Government : 

Potato flour V* peck $ .25 cents 

Tapioca flour y 2 peck 31 

Rice, 1st. quality 

Carolina, one pound 40 

Beans per pound 24 " 

Split peas, per pound 44 

Lard, per pound 56 

Cheese, per pound 1.10 

Sugar, per pound 22 

Chocolate, V2 pound 27 " 

Coffee, 1st quality per pound '. .80 " 

Coffee, 3rd. quality per pound 72 " 

We had been at St. Germain about ten days when the regi- 

165 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

meat was assembled in a field opposite La Source, and addressed 
by General Hale, who said he was unofficially advised that the 
Eighty-fourth was to be held together as a fighting division and 
would go to the trenches at the front in one month. That same 
night Colonel Bain called me to his headquarters at the City Hall 
and said he had orders for me to report as an instructor at one of 
the engineer schools of the A. E. F., but had replied that my serv- 
ices were needed with my division and regiment unless the exigen- 
cies of the war otherwise demanded. I sincerely thanked him, 
because General Hale's talk had made us believe that we would 
soon be at the front, a service that our regiment to a man was 
praying for, now that we had gotten this far after so many 
months of training as a pioneer regiment. 

A field on a flat hill of thistles two miles northwest of St. 
Germain was secured and intensive drill inaugurated; but never- 
theless, a few officers went on leave to Bordeaux and more to 
nearby Perigueux, the capitol of the department of Dordogne, in' 
which we were then stationed. Perigueux is 310 miles southwest 
of Paris, seventy-nine miles east of Bordeaux, and about the same 
distance from the border of Spain. In it are the ruins of a Roman 
amphitheater that seated forty thousand spectators when early 
Christians were popular as bonfires, and it contains one of the 
most interesting of sacred Christian buildings — the Cathedral of 
St. Front. Captain Gabbert will always remember St. Front, 
because it was while he was admiring its five cupalos that one of 
the virgins who tempted St. Anthony, came tripping along and 
asked him if he would'nt "promenade?*' Of course he would 
(not) and in order to get rid of her in a nice way he approached 
a corner policeman and asked him to tell him something about the 
church. 

He had recently paid five francs for a copy of Picart's Eng- 
lish-French French-English dictionary, and so felt able to talk 
with a French person of any sex or rank. He succeeded in forc- 
ing an admission from the policeman that St. Front was built a 
thousand years ago and resembles St. Mark's at Venice ; that its 
five cupalos are ninety feet high and are supported on a vaulted 
roof with pointed arches, which, the policeman admitted, had fur- 
nished the inspiration and technique for all the Gothic architec- 
ture of the Middle Ages that spread through France and thence 
to Spain, and to England, Germany and other countries. I looked 

166 



F. COMPANY AT NEUVIC 

this up in the Encyclopedia Brittanica and found the policeman 
was telling the truth. 

When Gabbart reported the above at regimental mess it was 
considered such a high and unbought testimonial for Picard's 
dictionary that most of our officers hastened to Neuvic and made 
a run on the visible supply, so I had to pay an extra franc for a 
copy, but 1 have never yet been able to hold a French man or 
woman long enough to translate a thing into either French or 
English by using it. 

One Saturday noon I was about to take my seat for dinner 
when Colonel Pain called me to his table and gave me peremptory 
orders to take F company to the quartermaster depot at Neuvic 
and report to the commanding officer there for duty. 

"The company went on a hike and is not back yet, will I have 
time to eat my dinner, sir?" 

"No! I said go at once. Take what F company men you can 
find, and let the rest follow ; but go ahead yourself and arrange 
for billeting your men." 

"We have thirty on sick report, sir. What shall we do with 
them?" 

"Take them along." 

"Will transportation be furnished?" 

"A truck for the sick — the rest of you walk." 

We didn't know it at the time, but we learned later that our 
sick men were the first ones down with the "flu" that was epi- 
demic the world over that winter of 1918-1919. 

The sick were quartered on the floor without mattresses in the 
drafty old loft of a shoe factory at Neuvic. Many were delirious 
and all so uncomfortable that every man able to walk preferred 
full duty ; the loading and unloading of division supplies that had 
been the job of two companies of infantry, whom we relieved. 
Several of our men worked half the night and went on again at 
4 o'clock Sunday morning, and after working all Sunday were on 
the job before daylight Monday. I was on continuous duty my- 
self for twenty-four hours. There were no complaints, partly be- 
cause such things are barred in the army, but more for the reason 
that ours were men of grit and backbone, and they won the praise 
of the officers of the division who were not used to Three Hun- 
dred and Ninth Engineers' efficiency and endurance. 

After Sunday dinner at division quartermaster officers' mess 
167 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

where acquaintance with luxuries, parted with in America, were 
again renewed, I walked into Neuvic to find a billet for the night, 
and turned to the left after crossing the bridge at the edge of the 
tuwn to look at the Chateau we had heard praised so highly. It 
was being used as division headquarters (G. 2) by General Hale 
and his staff. Of the many chateaus that I afterward saw in 
France, I do not recall a single one now that did not have an 
American general billeted in it. Whether the French owners 
forced the chateaus on our generals, or the reverse happened, I 
am unable to say, but may it not be that the descendants of their 
once noble owners were curious to see how the old places, built to 
accommodate a small army, would look full of real live soldiers. 

I was making a long distance sketch from inside the grounds 
when Lieut. Col. Gideon Blain, of Indianapolis, came along and 
volunteered to show me the fine points of the palace. 

( In our way up he asked if I had heard the latest; that Ger- 
many had asked for an armistice in which to discuss President 
Wilson's fourteen points? 

"It would lie a shame to stop the war just as we are getting 
into it," I insisted. 

"Yes from a personal view-point perhaps, but think of the 
hundreds of lives it would save !" 

"Right now, perhaps, but Germany isn't licked enough or she 
would sue for peace on any terms instead of asking to discuss 
them. In later years we may have to fight again and lose more 
lives than if we do the job right while we're at it." 

That was Sunday, October 6, 1918, a month before the armis- 
tice was signed without giving Germany any chance to discuss 
Wilson's fourteen points, and most of us believe now the war 
stopped too soon for the good of the world. 

The chateau of Neuvic was built in 1535, or perhaps in view of 
known French slowness it would be more accurate to say it was 
started then. It is on the bank of the river Isle, at the very 
water's edge, with deep moats blasted out of the rock running in 
from the river. Immense trees overhang the moats, which are 
lined with hedges of box and are filled with clear water of appar- 
ent great depth. At one end of the building is the chapel, in front 
of which was the handsomest elm in all Europe, and to Lieutenant 
Colonel Blain the chief object of interest there. After admiring 
the tree he said there were others along the river bank between 



CHATEAU AT NEUVIC 

the chateau and the spring-house. So we crossed a bridge over 
the moat and wandered down a sylvian way bounded on one side 
by a magnificently wooded bluff and on the other by the river, 
walled with cut stone and bearing evidence of use at one time as 
a landing dock for boats. A quarter mile down the avenue is a 
grotto with large basins at different levels fed by a waterfall. 
This may have been my lady's bath, if she enjoyed a plunge in cold 
spring water, but was built more likely for laundry or dairy 
purposes. 

A wing opposite the chapel-end of the chateau was the main 
entrance into a hall with a grand stairway that leads to the roof 
under which is room for the men-at-arms, who defended the castle 
and now occupied by many American doughboys of the Eighty- 
fourth division. The construction at every turn suggests the war- 
fare of the mediaeval times in which the chateau was built, when 
the bow, the lance and the boardsword were the chief weapons. 
There are battlements, turrets, and towers with projecting floors 
and openings called machicolations, through which the besieged 
dropped stones and hot tar on the heads of the neighboring princes 
who came to make reprisals in a bad humor, and port-holes every 
few feet at the middle of long vertical recesses remind us that the 
recesses were necessary in which the archers could draw their 
bows. 

The grand stairway led to a hall where the division adjutant 
was trying to adapt its antique furniture to the needs of modern 
warfare. Over his desk was a large painting of Henry IV. to 
which he called my attention, with the statement that the king had 
used this very room and furniture on visits to the chateau. He 
obtained his history from a French post card that I found later, 
and laboriously translated, and which stated that Chateau de 
Neuvic was one of the grand chateaus of France in Henry IV's 
time, and because of its immense room which gave retreat for 
hundreds of warriors, Henry IV and his prime minister, Sully, 
once made it their headquarters. 

Henry's picture looked the good-natured jollier that history 
says he was. He had a time keeping the Catholics from cutting 
his head off or killing him at the massacre of St. Bartholomew 
before he was King of France, and was only saved by his Catho- 
lic wife, Marguerite de Valois, whom he afterwards neglected and 
divorced. He succeeded in quieting the religious factions, that 

169 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

were waging civil war on each other, by himself turning from 
Huguenot to Catholic. Through his edict of Nantes he saved 
France from the terrors of the Inquisition, and encouraged that 
religious tolerance which has distinguished modern France. But 
poor Henry could not save himself from the hands of the religious 
assassin. 

I found a good billet at Neuvic and just before bed time an 
order came to defend Sergeant Dennim, of B company, at court 
martial trial next morning for disobedience of orders in allowing 
men to detrain at Javinny en route here, before orders to detrain 
were efiven bv the commanding: officer. 




COLONEL, BAIN, CENTER; LIEUT. COLONEL ELLIOTT. LEFT; MAYOR OF 
ST. GERMAIN, RIGHT, AND THE FAMILY OF THE MAYOR 



Monday morning Lieutenant Wasserman and I walked five 
miles to St. Germaine to attend the trial. Court was called imme- 
diately upon our arrival there at 9 a. m. Colonel Bain and Lieu- 
tenant Colonel Elliott testified against my client ; nineteen wit- 
nesses in all were examined. I anticipated a severe verdict and 
while it was "guilty" the sentence was a fine of one-half pay for 
three months — no confinement or reduction to ranks — and we 
congratulated ourselves after all. 



THE EPIDEMIC OF INFLUENZA 
CHAPTER XX 

CAMP THISTLE-DOWN 

When the court adjourned at 11:30 it was reported that F 
company had been relieved at Neuvic and was on its way back to 
Aeuviac. Our men on sick report had increased to thirty-seven. 
On Wednesday we had forty-three ; the other companies of the 
regiment not so many in proportion but enough to so alarm the 
medical staff that it was decided to move out of the crowded, 
unsanitary billets into small shelter-tents. Half of a shelter-tent 
is part of every soldier's equipment. He puts his half with that of 
his "buddy" ; they crawl in from one end and, if not too long of 
body and legs, can get under cover. 

The camp was on our drill-field, and was known among the 
soldiers as "Camp Thistle-Down" because of its numerous variety 
and generous crop of nettles. 

Rain was almost continuous, and the move seemed hazardous ; 
almost suicidal because of the exposure, but it proved a good one, 
and redounded much to the credit of our unequaled medical staff. 
Hospital tents were erected at a safe distance from the camp 
where a few of the worst cases died ; four of F company and as 
many more scattered among the other companies, out of near 
three hundred cases in the regiment. 

Because private Charles C. Thompson, an F company man, 
died first, it fell to my lot to make the necessary arrangements for 
burial in the cemetery at St. Germain in compliance with French 
law ; to build the coffin, dig the grave, and arrange for a military 
funeral, and because I thus learned the routine early, I was made 
the regimental undertaker in the absence of our two chaplains, 
who had previously gone to Bordeaux in connection with their 
other work. 

The family of the mayor, our friends at La Source, and all of 
the good people of St. Germain, were lavish with flowers to cover 
the pine boxes, draped with flags of the United States and 

171 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



Dur Comrades at St.Germain. 




grntheliftie cemetery in the hills of Saint Germain 
2= : Where- 1 he "che st nutrfig-arid olive add their wealth 
^Ao the -terrain]^'"' "^ 
/VeK^t^^fa field 'and forest, nook and cranny, 
2^0^- iii'lf and dale 

By the mosses, green and golden, that by magic touch 

prevail, 
Turning roughness info beauty: by the vineyard, fig, and 

grain, 
There we laid our stricken comrades, there our marfyr'd 

dead remain / 
Sincelwe bore them op our shoulders, keeping step 
to muffled drum; / 







There 



oounded u 



the last salute was fired and the bugle's 
re'quf&mf / / / / 

inded iapS/Whi'ch/svveetfv echoed as we watched 
setting s\\x\/ / 
Y'rjarbmlgerjara^s/ap^tory of the cycles yet to run. 
\\\tearW of rranceltHeir Graves will moisten, hallow'd 



\ \ | /memoes e'er^esteemT" 



-^Those who died in line Qf:dutyzWho have paid the 

price ' supreme.XT S^ ^ &sh ■ ? 

'•**""".»!'■ J?" " ~l ; -i;A.MINtURN,COF , ,309EfSG(?S.,A.E.r 
• -, A *-' mi «' &: •'/ .Wve-« ^ 



sss 



PART OF MY CONTRIBUTION TO COMPANY P'S HISTORY, "OUR EXPERI- 
BNCES." Reproduced Here by Permission 

France, and to cover the new graves like a blanket. The regi- 
mental band was in the lead ; then the squads that fired the salute 
over the unfilled graves; next the coffins, for the burials were 
always double, borne on the shoulders of the comrades of the de- 

172 



I CONTRACT THE MUMPS 

ceased ; then the chaplain from division headquarters, who came 
for the occasion ; our own officers, the dignitaries of the town, 
then the companies to which the stricken soldier beolnged, and at 
the end the humble citizens, old men, women and children, all that 
the war had left at home. 

Always in the evening these last rites were paid. Pluvius 
was kind enough to withhold his showers so the rays of the setting 
sun could brighten the laying to rest of these boys who had offered 
all they had, and whose offering had been accepted by that fate 
which allows some to live and others to go through the hardships 
of war and die, just before they reach the field of battle and of 
glory. We who live can well be reconciled with that fact ; but it 
seems sad that these men who had come so far must die from 
disease that profited none, and so far away from those most near 
and dear to them. 

The exertion of my numerous funerals so tired me that I 
consulted Dr. Davis about it and called his attention to a swollen 
condition of the right side of my face. He insisted on marking 
me "sick in quarters." The next day at officers' mess Dr. Efert 
pronounced my malady the mumps, whereupon Colonel Bain or- 
dered me to stay in my room. There I occupied my time in cen- 
soring a mass of letters that had been allowed to accumulate. If 
there was an epidemic of mumps back home among the folks of 
F company who read those letters the chances are they con- 
tracted it from the censor. Here is an "extract" from a letter by 
Corp. X. : 

"The country about here is very interesting. It is the most 
primitive I have seen ; in fact I did not suppose such conditoins 
and customs existed in this age. The people are thrifty in their 
way and seem to have all they need, but they cling to the old 
fashions in living. Ancient ox-carts, or more likely, cow-carts, 
shepherds tending herds and flocks to keep even the geese out of 
unfenced fields, wooden shoes, wooden plows hitched to yokes 
tied to the horns of the animals, no telephones, and seldom a news- 
paper are the prevailing conditions. 

"Nearly all of the homes are of stone centuries old, in which 
barn and dwellings a*-e all in one ; a yard surrounded by high 
^tone walls. We were billeted a couple of weeks at a French 
farming village ; all the farmers live in villages here. The people 
were kind to us, and I had long talks with the old daddies. We 

173 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

managed to understand each other quite well. They all tried so 
hard to understand us. We are their 'comrades' they say, and 
from the oldest 'grandmere' to the petite garcon they give us a 
smile and friendly greeting." 

Captain Noonan. of D company, is reported very sick from 
the mumps and my informant stated the regiment had orders to 
move and Noonan and I would be left behind. But the next time 
Major Efert examined my face he said the order was changed and 
Noonon and I would go along in a separate car. 

Rose is daily growing more popular in St. Germain society. 
At his last dinner out, the men-folk sat at the table with their hats 
on, and after eating their "potage" poured a glass of vin blanc in 
their soup plates, which they drank in the good old way that many 
of our ancestors drank coffee from their saucers. Spinach, beef, 
roast turkey, grapes and "fouinage" followed in separate courses, 
and everybody put cognac in their coffee instead of milk. So 
much for the customs of St. Germain. 

Captain (Dr.) Davis informed me that the regiment would en- 
train Tuesday morning and that he had been transferred to the 
sanitary train. We were near the same age, and were so often 
together that in America whenever Captain McDonald saw either 
of us alone he inquired. "Where is your little playmate?" We 
often debated our chances of seeing France at our ages, but here 
we both are. 

Dr. Davis further imparted that at conference today the Colo- 
nel remarked that Lieutenant Minturn might get orders to go to 
the army school at Langres, near Metz and the front, as instruc- 
tor instead of accompanying the regiment. That prospect began 
to take on definite form and a new interest ; but no order inter- 
cepted me and on Tuesday morning Captain Noonan and I were 
hauled over to Mussidan in an ambulance. Instead of being 
crowded like the rest, we shared a whole compartment with 
Lieutenant Dimm and Doctor Helfrich, and were watched over 
and favored in a manner very novel and pleasing to a tired soldier 
no sicker than I. My first letter in France from Herbert came 
last night, written from Pauillac, which, he says, is near Bordeaux, 
but this train is taking me where ? I do not know, except that is 
is not toward Bordeaux. 

We rode through vineyards and hills and then through a level 
country where the roads lined with tall trees, the streams lined 

174 



NANTES, BIRTHPLACE OF JULES VERNE 

with short trunks of ample girth but having low, bushy tops, soon 
to be clipped off as faggots for fire-wood, and the acres of tall 
cabbage-like stalks in rows from which Brussels sprouts are har- 
vested, were the features of most lasting impression of this trip 
That is, until we reached Nantes, the city made famous by the, 
edict of Henry IV., that charter of liberty of the Huguenots in 
France for nearly a hundred years. The name of Nantes was im- 
pressed on my mind by a picture of long ago, showing King 
Henry in a door-way flourishing a document before an excited 
crowd. The title printed under it was the "Edict of Nantes." and 
aroused my curiosity to learn what all the excitement was about. 
The whole story came back to me as our train followed the 
crooked Loire through the ancient business portion of the com- 
monwealth, and another memory of my youth gave prominence to 
this city of Nantes. Here Jules Verne was born and grew to man- 
hood, and who knows but that his dream of the Nautilus was 
suggested by some of the odd craft here in the river Loire. His 
"Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" is an imaginary 
flight of forty years ago that describes the submarines we had to 
dodge in crossing over here ; his "Five Weeks in a Balloon" is 
commonplace in comparison now with the exploits of our living 
aviators, and who can say a "Trip from the Earth to the Moon" 
may not be attempted in a projectile shot from a still bigger 
"Bertha" than the one that has been bombarding Paris at a sev- 
enty-five-mile range? Jules Verne died in 1905, before the World 
war fulfilled his scientific prophecies ; peeved because his country- 
men did not give him credit as a prophet that he felt entitled to. 

The regiment detrained at Montour, a suburb of St. Nazaire, 
near one of the marvelous American base ports. They spent the 
first night under their shelter-tents in a cabbage patch, where 
they felt at home for various reasons ; but next day they were 
inducted into squad tents where F company remained until the 
regiment came home the following July. Near them was a camp 
of colored soldiers from the states. As I was taken to the hos- 
pital, I must copy again from the published history of F company : 

"When we first arrived some one called over to one of the 
colored troops to inquire what kind of a camp they were in. 
'Rest camp, boss,' came the reply. 'Yo do all you kin in the day 
time, and the rest you do at night." Next day the truth of this 
statement was brought home to the men. The Pont Chateau and 

175 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Donges roads were in need of repair, and the work was assigned 
to the first platoon. Each man was made a foreman and was 
given a detail from the Fiftieth artillery. They left camp at 7 
o'clock in the morning, and it was often after 6 before they re- 
turned. On the following Monday the remainder of the company 
was assigned the task of laying several miles of side-track and the 
building of about a hundred warehouses on the marsh land along 
the banks of the Loire. No rain clothes had yet been issued, and 
everyone was still wearing his field shoes. The rainy season had 
started and the ground, always soggy and water soaked, soon 
became a veritable lake. Some one suggested that it would be 
necessary to use a pantoon bridge for the road bed. 

"After a few days' experience in carrying lunches, it was 
decided to bring a warm meal from the camp at noon. This al- 
most caused another military funeral in the company, because 
Cook Wintner lost his way. Everyone had fixed bayonets when 
they lined up for mess that evening, but as usual Adolph had a 
good alibi and the incident ended when mess sergeant, Guy 
Kuhns, promised never again to trust Wintner with the 'chow.' " 

The F company "history" tells the following story of Guy 
Kuhns in his effort to get fresh eggs at St. Germain for the 
sick men, and I can appreciate it from the trouble I had in making 
a farmer's wife understand that I wanted eggs. This is the story 
from the "history :" 

"Guy Kuhns was trying to buy some eggs from a French 
woman. She could not understand what his 'oof meant, so in his 
desperation he squatted down, flapped his arms like wings, and 
cackled like a hen. Then the light of understanding dawned on 
her face ; 'Oui ! oui ! oui ! Je compree !' and she took him by the 
hand and led him to the latrine." 



176 



IN HOSPITAL AT ST. NAZAIRE 



CHAPTER XXI 

ST. NAZAIRE AND PARIS 

Captain noonan and I were told to wait at "le gare" in Mon- 
toir for an ambulance to take us to a hospital. It came late and 
we were buffeted over long and rough roads, but the end was 
worth the price. We were ticketed to ward 10, Base Hospital 
101, St. Nazaire, where we made the professional acquaintance of 
that divine being in human form, known to the soldiers as a Red 
Cross nurse. We spent six days there ; the closest to heaven and 
heavenly rest experienced in all of my two years of army life. 
No revielle ; three meals a day in bed ; eggs, chicken, ice cream 
and a cup of hot cocoa between meals, and again at 9 p. m. as a 
night cap. 

On Sunday Lieutenant Johnson brought me the much talked- 
of order from which I quote the following : 

"3. Pursuant to instructions contained in 2nd indorsement 
from the adjutant general G. H. O., American E. F., dated Octo- 
ber 14, 1918, First Lieutenant Joseph A. Minturn, 309th Engi- 
neers, will proceed to Langres, so as to reach there November 10, 
1918, reporting upon arrival to the commandant, army schools 
thereat, for duty as instructor. 

"The travel directed is necessary in the military service." 

I was anxious to be out and away, but under the hospital 
rules was required to remain until the following Wednesday. 

The day I returned to the regiment I learned that Colonel 
Bain had been relieved from duty with the Three Hundred and 
Ninth Engineers and was ordered to the first army at the front. 
In a talk with him he 
said, I would have bet- 
ter opportunities for ad- 
vancement than if I re- 
mained with the Three 
Hundred and Ninth ; 
that I had made rapid 
improvement, and had 
the qualifications of a 
good company command- 
er and he would be sur- 
prised if I were not soon promoted. Can it be that he had pur- 
posely held me back while he was in command of the regiment 

177 




OAPTAIN NOONAN AND I. IN BASE HOSPITAL, 
ST. NAZAIRE, WITH THE MUMPS 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

for some purpose? I cannot imagine what and put the question 
to Col. Albert Smith since my discharge, who said it was probably 
to make sure the gratification of my desire for service overseas ; 
otherwise I might have remained as he did, in this country. 

Major Hess gave a farewell dinner at the Grand Hotel in St. 
Nazaire to Colonel Bain, to which all of the officers of the regi- 
ment were invited. Wit, wine and hilarity, not unmixed with 
sadness over the breaking of old ties, so detained us that all of the 
fifty-seven railway gates between the hotel and our camp were 
closed and the gatemen asleep. Every railroad crossing at grade 
in France has double gates, and a substantial gate-keeper's lodge, 
with an attendant ready to open the gates, if he isn't asleep in the 
lodge. Some of these gates have been carried away by impatient 
American truck drivers. 

Of my hospital experience the aforesaid history of F company 
has these kind words, for which I take this opportunity of extend- 
ing my most venerable appreciation : 

"Lieutenant Minturn was too sly to catch the 'flu' but began 
his childhood days over again by contracting the mumps. He was 
confined to his quarters for ten days and secured a well-earned 
and well-deserved rest. No man in the company has endured the 
sacrifices that this 'grand old man' has, and it was with pleasure 
that the company learned of his recovery." 

The first day out of the hospital was spent in locating my bag- 
gage, which is hard enough to keep in touch with when you 
haven't the mumps, and are on the job. The next two days I 
was in charge of F company platoons on railroad track-laying, in 
water half way to the knees of the men, and participated with 
much interest in a race with Lieutenant Lardner and E company, 
who were working on a spur parallel with the track we were lay- 
ing. The fourth day I insisted on being relieved from company 
duty so I could get away to my new assignment as I did not pro- 
pose to wait until November 10 to report there. Colonel Bain had 
already taken his departure but thoughtfully left the following 
estimate and appreciation : 

Headquarters 309 Engineers, U. S. A., 

American E. F., France. 
To Whom it May Concern: October 31, 1918. 

First Lieutenant Joseph A. Minturn, Three Hundred and 
Ninth Engineers, has been under my close supervision and obser- 
vation for almost one year. He came to me as a second lieutenant 
in the Quartermaster corps in order to perform the duties of 

178 



COLONEL BAIN'S LETTER 

Instructor in Camouflage and Military Sketching in the Eighty- 
fourth division, Engineer School, of which I was commandant. 
At my earnest solicitation, Lieutenant Minturn was promoted to 
the grade of first lieutenant engineers and assigned to my com- 
mand in the Three Hundred and Ninth Engineers. 

Lieutenant Minturn is a man of excellent character and hi^li 
attainments. He is well beyond the age which would submit him 
to compulsory military service and he is in this war from a sense 
of duty to his country. His success along the lines of his special- 
ties, viz., camouflage and military sketching, have been most 
highly satisfactory. His work in camouflage at Camp Taylor, 
Ky., and Camp Sherman, Ohio, has brought forth praise and 
admiration from his superior officers, including the commanding 
general of the Eighty-fourth division and from all other persons 
who have observed his work. 

Inasmuch as in the pioneer engineer service an officer or 
enlisted man cannot afford to be a pure specialist, I have given 
Lieutenant Minturn as much company and engineering duty as 
was possible. On account of his age and unfamiliarity with 
purely military subjects, he did not get along with the military 
engineering work so well at first, but his earnest endeavor to 
learn and his indefatigable energy have wrought a wonderful 
improvement, and it is my opinion that if allowed to remain with 
a sapper company he would become, within a reasonable time, a 
first-class company officer as well as an excellent specialist in 
camouflage and militarv sketching. 

JARVIS J. BAIN, 
Colonel Engineers, U. S. A., Commanding. 

This was the last word from Colonel Bain and I will be as 
frank in summing up my opinion of him as he was of me. He 
was able, honest and candid ; candid at times to an unnecessary 
degree ; he had the West Point idea of "iron rigid discipline," 
borrowed from Germany, but not adapted to American troops 
without considerable modification ; he made the common mistake 
of assuming that the enlisted personnel of the National army was 
of the same "hard boiled" caliber as the regular army of peace 
times, and he was often over-zealous in his efforts to maintain the 
supremacy in the army of his particular regiment, and the corps 
of engineers, the branch of the service to which he belonged. 

Gay "Paree" was very demure on the first of November, 1918, 
when I blinked at her first from the portals of the D'Orsay rail- 
way station and hailed a taxi, which took me to St. Ann street in 
an endeavor to get my twenty-four-hour pass extended. But the 
story I told the officious second Leuie in charge lacked original- 

179 



THE. AMERICAN SPIRIT 



ity, or conviction, as it failed to carry, and he refused a single 
moment's grace. That so relieved and settled my mind that I 
discharged the taxi and set out like Byard Taylor for "views 
afoot." 

The streets were not crowded ; civilians were greatly outnum- 
bered by the military, and, among these, Americans easily pre- 
dominated. How they got to Paris and staid there I would like 
to know. The carvings on the triumphal arches and other struc- 
tures were protected by barricades of sand bags ; the Louvre was 
closed, run down and deserted, and its openings similarly barri- 
caded. I was told that the best pictures and best other art had 
been removed to Bordeaux. But the Eiffel tower yet remained 
to project itself into the background of every perspective. The 
entrance to the subway next to the place de la Opera bore the 
notice "Refuge" to invite all to a place of safety who were 
alarmed by Big Bertha's shells, or by bombs dropped by German 
aeroplanes. Grave, determined Paris was earning that decoration 

for bravery which 
France has since 
given her with the 
world's approval. 

The railroads of 
France radiate from 
Paris like spokes 
from the hub of a 
wheel, and one desir- 
ing to go from spoke 
to spoke can make the 
journey easier bv 
traveling first to the 
hub (Paris) and then 
to his destination. That is why I saw Paris several times after 
the armistice was signed, and was privileged to watch her come 
to life afterward like a perennial in springtime. 

I had to let a little depot-woman truck my luggage for me, 
much to my embarrassment. Then it was an all-day ride in a 
southeasterly direction from Paris, next day to Langres, and, due 
to my ignorance of the custom of reserving a seat in advance, I 
might have stood all the way, as the train was crowded, had it 
not been for a young lady, who heard me inquire for a seat, and 
told me, in very good English, that the one next to her was not 

180 




MY TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO PARIS 



ARRIVAL AT LANGRES 

taken. I couldn't determine if she were English or American, 
and was surprised when she said that she was French and had 
learned her English at school. She changed cars at Chaumont 
for her home at Toul, that city of war widows, where four 
years of constant jeopardy and suspense had driven out mirth. 
She told me as we passed through Troyes that my station 
was forty-five kilometers beyond Chaumont, where she 
would change. As my idea of the length of a kilometer was then 
quite vague, and none of the stations were announced, I feared 
being carried past my destination. Facing me in the compartment 
were two French engineer officers, interestedly conversing in 
their own language. I tried to talk to my neighbors on either 
hand, but "je ne comprendre pas," was the result. 

"Is there anyone here who speaks English?" I inquired with' 
some concern, loud enough for all to hear. 

"I do, sir, in what way can I be of service?" asked one of the 
engineer officers. 

"Please tell me if we have passed Langrees." 

"Pardon, but what was the name again?" 

"Langrees ! L-A-N-G-R-E-S !" Spelling it. 

"Oh, you mean Long! It is fifteen kilometers on yet. I'll tell 
you when we get there." 

These incidents illustrate how common it was to meet French 
people who spoke good English, and how uncommon it was for me 
to pronounce French names and words so a French person would 
understand. 

CHAPTER XXII 

LANGRES, HAUTE-MARNE 

The railway station at Langres is at the foot of a hill so high 
and steep that the ascent must be made by a cogged road unless 
one prefers an hour's climb up a grade all too steep for pleasant 
walking. While we wait for the little train to decide to come 
down for us I have time to examine the surroundings. 

Diderot says the town "is like the cock on the tower of a 
church." It looks too big to me for a weather-cock and far too 
firmly placed to turn with the wind. Its frowning wall has tur- 
rets and towers enough, and behind are a few great buildings 

181 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

among trees and a multitude of lower red roofs. The sides of the 
hills are clothed with more trees than are usually found ; beyond 
to the right is a detached elevation crowned with a colossal stat- 
ute, and to the extreme left is a lake from which Langres, if 
viewed from there, might be likened more to a lighthouse than to 
a cock on a church tower. 

But our little train has ventured down again ; the first con- 
ductor encountered in France has collected nearly half as much for 
the trip up as the entire fare from Paris, and with more or less 
uncertainty as to the outcome, we rise slowly, and with much the 
same sensation experienced in a first ride in an aeroplane. The 
country begins to look like a checkerboard, and in the distance to 
the left are the blue Alsatian Mountains, which we had sung and 
read much about. When we paused on Cremaillere viaduct we 
supposed it was in deference to a law of the road not to drive on 
the bridge faster than a walk, but found it was to get up steam 
enough to make the last lap, which finally took us through a hole 
in the wall, and to the getting-off place between the eastern ram- 
parts and a large four-story building, in which I afterward learned, 
was our Army Intelligence School and School of the Line. The 
view is well worth coming to see, but you must see it yourself for 
I am as short of adjectives to describe it as our engine was of 
steam. 

Here some kind friend directed me to the Grand Hotel de la 
Poste as the most modern and best. How I found my way past 
St. Mammes cathedral, around Diderot in bronze, and up the 
crooked street to a tiny open space the size of a good airshaft 
called the Place Ziegler, where the hotel fronts, is a mystery. I 
was overjoyed though, with the novelty of traversing streets with 
stores where I could stand in the middle and touch the show 
windows on both sides, and where the men and women I met had 
to shunt into doorways like a train on a siding to let me pass. 
But I was soon making signs to Mme. Lamy, who spoke scant 
English, in my effort to make her acquainted with my needs, and 
while she was deciding on my rank, which would determine who 
of several of us would get the best rooms, I studied an elaborate 
annunciator on the wall that must have rung chimes in its youth, 
but, like the Sphinx, was now silent. Either the hotel had lost its 
pristine grandeur or my single silver bar did not entitle me to 
draw much of it, for, after climbing a spiral stair to room i, 

182 



GRAND HOTEL DA LA POSTE 

where I was assigned, I discovered that I had no outside window 
nor means for artificial light. But later the madam gave me a 
candle, by the dim flicker of which I discerned several chairs, 
each backless or lacking a leg ; a sofa with a collapsed bottom, and 
a pretentious washstand with a stationary bowl, and a faucet 
above ready to discharge into it from a waterless waterback. 

The old homme who showed me my room pointed to a sepa- 
rate bowl and pitcher and said something about "eau" and "laver" 
but was as silent as the annunciator about anything that had the 
sound of soap or towel ; however, there was a good bed, and a 
nice little feather mattress to cover with, and I slept soundly after 
I later turned in for the night. 

Soon dinner was served in courses from "pottage" to "fou- 
mage" with wine, and was well worth the price of five francs. 




AMERICAN ARMY SCHOOL, HEADQUARTERS AT 
LANGRES, FRANCE 

There were many American officers at the tables and some French 
civilians. All of the romantic interest and adventure detailed of 
the assemblies here by Major Powell in his "A. P. O. 714" article 
in Scribners (April, 1919) may have belonged to the guests, but 
they did not tell me the story of their lives. 

The memories that linger most persistently are of the disincli- 
nation of a waitress to serve me bread because I had no bread 
check, and of a Frenchman with the silken beard and beatific 
countenance of a Christ of the Old Masters, who proved to be a 
local tailor soliciting trade from our officers. The bread situa- 
tion was relieved by the generosity of an American colonel who 
singularly preferred our army bread to the French kind, and 
divided from a supply cached in a convenient closet. 

183 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Upon inquiry next day at the Army School headquarters near 
City Hall, I learned that my station was at the Army Infantry 
Specialists School, at Ft. Plesnoy, some five or six miles to the 
northeast. I had all that day, while waiting for transportation, 
to look the town over, and was there frequently afterward. 
Langres, around which the great United States army schools were 
grouped; Chamont, where the commanding general lived, and 
the general headquarters (G. H. Q.) were located, and Tours, 
headquarters for the Service of Supply (S. O. S.), were the three 
chief American centers in France, and naturally, anything about 
them should be of interest. 

Langres is eighty miles south of Verdun and was within a few 
hour's ride of the front-line trenches of the St. Mihiel and Toul 
sectors. An old Roman road runs from there past the birthplace 
of Joan of Arc, at Domremy, fifty miles away toward Verdun 
Before the war Langres had nine thousand inhabitants, but at 
the time I write it had several thousand more by reason of an 
influx of refugees from the North. Its expansion is stopped on 
three sides by the sudden drop of the hill on which it is built, and 
the neck of its little plateau on the fourth side does not encourage 
expansion in that direction. In fact, the neck is mostly occupied 
by a fortification known as the Citadelle, which contains the 
Turenne barracks where there was a large school for making 
officers out of enlisted men, and where the Infantry Specialist 
School and other institutions for special training were organized 
and then removed to different ones of a chain of surrounding 
forts. 

Here in Turenne barracks was the base printing plant, installed 
and operated by the Twenty-ninth Engineers, where the carloads 
of maps required to guide our millions of fighting men to victory, 
were kept up to the minute in the location of every trench, strong- 
point, wire entanglement, etc., of both contending armies. It 
was complete in every detail of engraving, lithographing and 
color-printing equipment, but not content with a stationary plant 
almost on the line of battle, the Twenty-ninth Engineers designed 
and completed one on wheels which was ready to go into Germany 
with our mobile army at the time of the signing of the Armistice. 

The walled city of Langres extends more than twice as far 
north and south as it does east and west, and as its wall follows 
the edge of the plateau the steep slopes below make it appear more 

184 



THE ROMANS AT LANGRES 



impregnable. It is circled by a dozen forts and was thought 
capable of resisting any attack. The gigantic statue to "our Lady 
of Deliverance" on Gallows Hill, west of the town, which I first 
saw from the railway station, commemorates the successful resis- 
tance of the Germans in the war of 1870-71, but the destruction 
with modern artillery in the World war has dissolutionized its 
inhabitants of any such present security. 

As far back as history goes there has been a town here. It 
was a worshiping place for the Druids before Caesar came. He 
changed the name a few times and finally settled on Lingones, 
from which, I suppose, the present name is modernized. 

In the present wall around the city is a Roman gate, closed 
now, but still pointed to as the most notable monument of the 
Roman Empire extant in Eastern France. The architectural design 
is fine, but more than that, it carries the mind to its builder, the 
Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who before he died in 180 A. D., 
wrote his noble Meditations — a book that was the daily study and 
guide of our Captain John Smith — he who helped to found the 
United States and was -r=r r^== ^.n. _ 







saved from death by 
Pocahontas. 

Aurelius stained his 
escutcheon by sanc- 
tioning the cruel per- 
secution of the Chris- 
ians ; but he was born 
a pagan and shared 
the popular belief that 
a severe plague and 
the public reverses of 

his reign were judg- ROMAN GATE A t"lTngrf7s 
ments sent by the gods 
for not checking the advancing tide of Christianity. I say this 
by way of explanation of why a man good enough to write the 
Meditations could have given the order for the burning in a 
fiery furnace like unto which Shadrach, Mesheck and Abednego 
were cast, of the St. Geosmes twins. The twins were converted 
to Christianity by the preaching of St. Benignus, first missionary 
to Langres, and the Church of the Twin Saints located just be- 
yond the citadel is called the cradle of Christianity in France. 
How appropriate that America, actuated by Christ's teachings, 

185 



BUILT BY MARCUS 
AURELIUS ABOUT 157 B. C. 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

should select this Cradle of Christianity as the place in which to 
complete the training of the world's greatest crusaders. 

A mile further out from the Church of the Twin- Saints is 
Marnotte Spring, the source of the river Marne. The water 
from this spring flows past Chaumont and Chauteau-Thierry 
into the Seine at Paris and thence to the Atlantic. Rain falling 
but a short distance away feeds the headwaters of the Meuse and 
flows past St. Mihiel, Verdun and Sedan through Belgium to 
the North Sea, while water falling on the south side of the 
Langres Plateau enters the Rhone and flowing south reaches the 
Mediterranean. 

But I did not bring you to Marnotte Spring just to show you 
a part of this remarkable water-shed ; a few feet up the slope 
from the shrine of the Virgin is the cave of Julius Sabinus, who 
boasted his descent from Julius Caesar. But he made a wrong 
political guess by espousing the cause of Vitellius against Otho, 
who was made emperor of Rome after the murder of Galba in 
A. D. 69. His troops from Langres were defeated and Sabinus 
escaped to the cave and lived in hiding for nine years, but was 
then discovered, taken to Rome and beheaded. Contrast this 
with the fate of William Hohenzollern and his generals who also 
made a wrong guess, and then tried to make it good by reviving 
all the cruelties of ancient warfare! They have not even had to 
hide in a cave to save their necks. 

The decadence of Rome and its invasion by the barbarian 
hordes from the north inaugurated generations of misery for 
Langres, located as it was directly in their path. About 264 
A. D. a Vandal chief chopped off the head of Bishop St. Didier, 
whose offense was that he pleaded for the lives of his people ; 
then the Vandals massacred the citizens and absolutely destroyed 
the city. It was rebuilt and again attacked early in the fourth 
century, but saved by the aid of some Roman legions under 
Constantius Chlorus, who fought a bloody battle near the town of 
\ 'iegny, two or three miles distant, which town we passed in 
going to and from our station at Fort Plesnoy. 

Attila, the Hun, from whom the Kaiser patterned his atroci- 
ties, passed by and stopped to completely destroy Langres, and 
later the Saracens as completely destroyed it. But the people as 
persistently rebuilt, just as the French will do in the regions 
devastated by this World war, each time on top of the old debris, 
which, here, has raised the surface more than twenty feet above 

186 



LANGRES A CATHOLIC CITY 

the level existing when Aurelius built the Roman gate that still 
stands, but so low it cannot now be used. 

Since the destruction of Langres by the Saracens, over a 
thousand years ago, the city has been undisturbed by the many 
local wars and raids of robber-bands, that frequently laid waste 
the neighboring country during these centuries. This was 
largely on account of the influence of the Church of Rome to 
which the habitants de Langres became early and zealously at- 
tached. It is claimed that the Chapter here, besides furnishing 
the church with numerous bishops, has fifteen cardinals and two 
popes to its credit and that no other community of equal size has 
so many edifices originally built by the church and so richly 
carved and decorated. Many of these have been appropriated by 
the State in later years, but the embellishments remain to take 
the visitor by surprise at every turn of the narrow and crooked 
streets. 

In 1 591 the inhabitants of Langres declared themselves for 
our old friend Henry IV, and the Duke of Lorraine came over 
with troops from Chaumont to repeat what happened to the 
people of Langres under the leadership of Julius Sabinus. They 
pulled a huge howitzer-kind of a war-machine up the hill, 
and, lacking confidence in their marksmanship, had it planted 
almost against the gate in the wall leading to the City Hall, so as 
to be sure not to miss, and were about to shoot down the gate 
when the town was saved, — not like Rome, by a goose — but by a 
baker at work in his shop by the ramparts. I climbed up to that 
gate after midnight one night with a light pack on my back, — 
the crew on the cogged road not keeping such late hours, and am 
sure any baker working within the distance of a city block could 
have heard me puff long before I reached the gate. How Cap- 
tain Brichanteau followed by two hundred horsemen and three 
thousand infantrymen "stole up to the very gate before they were 
discovered," as the story declares, passes all understanding. 
But the baker heard the noise and raised the neighbors by firing 
a gun, the enemy fled precipitately and "today v\ e may see that 
war-machine in the museum of Langres" which, of course, proves 
the story. 

This is only a meager statement, historically and otherwise, of 
the sleepy old provincial town selected by our hi h command for 
the grouping together of the various military schools where the 
knowledge from three years of experience by our allies in a 

187 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



highly specialized warfare was imparted to the leaders of our 
troops ; and to this training as well as to the valor of our soldiers, 
success of the American arms from Chauteau-Thierrv to the 
Argonne-Meuse is due. 

Grouped together, as the schools of all branches of the serv- 
ice were, here, with the two exceptions of the Artillery School at 
Saumur and aviation at Issoudun, demonstrations for visiting 
classes were possible, that led to intelligent co-operation later in 
the St. Mihiel and Argonne offensives, and as the schools were 
less than three hours' ride by automobile from No-Man's-Land 
the instructors were sent to the front frequently to check up and 
verify their work. 

The General Staff College was in the large building near 
where we got off the cunicular. This was a post-graduate course 
for officers who had acquitted themselves with special credit in 
the School of the Line. After graduation here they might ex- 
pect to be intimately associated with General Pershing in the 
development and execution of the deep strategy of the war, on the 




THE RAMPARTS. LANGRES, PRANCE. THE SCHOOL, OF THE LINE WAS 

IN THE LARGE MIDDLE BLTILDING. THE WAGON ROAD LINED WITH 

TREES IN THE DISTANCE GOES TO FORT PLESNOY 

Staff of a division, corps, or army in the field, or at general head- 
quarters at Chaumont-Olympus, where all of the thunderbolts of 
Jupiter were supposed to be forged and from whence at any rate 
they were hurled. 

The School of the Line was in another large building ad- 
joining that of the Staff College — both originally convents or 
church property seized by Napoleon. Here officers who were 
supposed to function at the front, were taught the science of 
maneuver and the handling of troops, — and incidentally, without 
being taught, became obsessed with the idea that their genius was 

188 



A. E. F. SCHOOLS AT LANGRES 

too rare to be hazarded for the good of the army outside of a 
safe dug-out well to the rear. 

The Sanitary School was also on the ramparts close by, from 
which a grand view, almost into Germany, was afforded. We 
have mentioned the Candidates School in Turenne barracks. 
Here six thousand picked men from the A. E. F. were graduated 
every three months into second lieutenants, and here the stu- 
dents of the army signal corps put up and took down vast kilo- 
meters of field telegraph and telephone wire; learned the mys- 
teries of the Listening-in service, and practiced day- and night- 
signaling so effectively that Mars has since been trying to answer 
back. Continuing on south from Langres through Turenne bar- 
racks and past the Church of the Twin Saints at St. Geosmes, 
where we turn to the right, we come soon to Fort de la Bonnelle. 
devoted to the training of pigeons for use at the front ; and they 
proved to be ninety-five per cent, proficient in finding their way 
safely through barrage and gas-cloud in the World war. 

Not very far in the opposite direction from St. Geosmes or 
more in the neighborhood of Marnotte Spring and the Cave of 
Sabinus, was the Tank School at Fort du Cognelat. There, our 
men were taught, among other things, to use the Renault 
"whippets" effectively in supporting our line of scouts by wiping 
up machine-gun nests as they did in the St. Mihiel and Argonne 
offensives. 

They ran these road-rollers over the Bosch, and peppered 
them with the leaden hail to boot, as fast as our scouts could 
locate the infernal nests. Five miles to the north and a little west 
from Langres, at Fort Saint Menge, was the Army Engineer 
School, to which I at first supposed I was ordered, but which I 
visited on several occasions. This was on another ridge which 
overlooked a great artificial lake known as the Reservoir de 
Charmes, where the engineers learned to build pontoon and other 
bridges, and at the Fort the Camouflage, Pioneer, Demolition, 
Mining, Flash and Sound Ranging and Gas Schools were 
conducted. 

Fort de Plesnoy was between five and six miles east by north- 
east from Langres. Here a detail of over two thousand soldiers 
were taught musketry, the use of hand grenades, automatic- 
rifles, trench-mortars, 37-millimeter guns, sniping, scouting and 
bavonet work in the Army Infantry Specialists' School. Between 

180 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Fort de Plesnoy and Langres and only a mile or so from the 
latter as the crow flies, is Fort de Peigney, where the Machine 
Gun School which was originally a part of the Infantry Special- 
ists' School, was located, and there students secured practical 
instruction in the use of the Hotchkiss, Vickers, Browning and 
Lewis machine-guns. Soon after my discharge and return to 
Indianapolis I met Jean Cadou, of Company A, Fort Benjamin 
Plarrison, and learned that he was stationed there at Fort de 
Peigney, while I was passing back and forth every few days 
without knowing it. 

There were bakers, cooks, farriers and innumerable other 
minor schools at Langres and vicinity also, but enough has been 
said to give the reader an intelligent idea of my new surround- 
ings. What happened to me during the next few days is related 
more vividly than I could recall it now, in the following letter to 
my wife, written on Thanksgiving Day after the armistice was 
signed and the censorship lifted, permitting the soldiers of the 
A. E. F., for the first time, to write their experiences home in 
detail. 

This letter is a general review of much that I have already 
chronicled, but I hope the repetition will not prove to be tedious : 



CHAPTER XXIII 

MY FIRST UN CENSORED LETTER 

Army Infantry Specialists' School, 
Fort de Plesnoy, France, November 28, 1918. 
My dear wife : The censorship has been lifted as the en- 
closed clipping shows, which now permits me to write you more 
fully than I have been able before in regard to my army experi- 
ences since I left the states, and I am going to spend this Thanks- 
giving afternoon, with the aid of the adjutant's typewriter, in 
giving you a brief history. 

We left Camp Sherman, Ohio, as you know, on Saturday, 
August 24, 1918, for Camp Mills, L. I., N. Y., on train No. 2>7, 
of which I was made supply officer and had to see that our 482 
officers and men on board were fed three times a day ; also had 

190 



MY FIRST UNCENSORED LETTER 

charge of all baggage. We went via Columbus and Marion, Ohio, 
and thence on the Erie through Pennsylvania and New York 
states. We were held over Sunday night at Port Jarvis to have 
daylight in making the ferry and several other changes, and ar- 
rived at Camp Mills Monday just before dark. I was detailed to 
deliver four prisoners to as many different organizations forth- 
with. It was pitch dark before I got my detail together and* 
started, and it was near midnight before we got back from hunt- 
ing the scattered regiments in a big strange camp and routing 
out the commanding officers to get their receipts for the 
prisoners. 

We began at once equipping our men and completing our 
quota for overseas service. The most noticeable feature of our 
stay here was the daily drill in the sky over us of innumerable 
aeroplanes. 

Our second battalion entrained for embarkation at I 140 p. m. 
Sunday, September 8, and that same evening our regiment went 
aboard the "Scandanavian," a British boat, but did not leave the 
dock until 9 o'clock on Monday. 




OUR CONVOY OF CAMOUFLAGED SHIPS SAILING OUT OF NEW YORK 
HARBOR 

Then we steamed down the bay and joined fourteen other 
vessels — all strangely camouflaged in different wierd patterns — 
which were to be convoyed to Europe with the Scandinavian. 
A number of naval vessels accompanied us and the sight of them 
on our front and flanks gave a sense of security until they left 
us the fourth or fifth day out. A number of air-craft, including 
cigar-shaped balloons from which observation cars were sus- 
pended, remained with us Monday. These balloons were tied to 
steamers that towed them along, and we were positively assured 
that all submarines were as easily seen by the balloon observers 
as if the ocean water were so much glass. 

191 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Twelve days later we sighted the north of Ireland, to the 
great joy of all, from the commanding officer to the nineteen 
prisoners in the "brig." In many respects it was a memorable 
trip. Officers and men were required to wear life-preservers and 
belts with full canteens attached, except while asleep, and then 
they must be in instant reach, and life-boat drills were called at 
unexpected times. The ship was badly overcrowded and had to 
be closed down so tight to hide the lights from the enemy that 
ventilation was interfered with. About once each twenty-four 
hours I had to go on watch eight continuous hours with my cam- 
pany in the forward steerage, and on one occasion was on for 
sixteen hours without intermission — then had a turn as officer 
of the guard, — a strenuous job of inspecting thirty odd posts all 
over the ship with the boat rising and falling in fifty-foot plunges. 
During rest-periods I censored the company letters. 

The night of September 19 was the time of our greatest ap- 
prehension. All of that day we had been studying the horizon 
ahead for signs of British destroyers, which should have come 
out to meet us. Several rumors of submarines seen were re- 
peated and it was declared that were it not for the heavy sea, 
which was prohibitive of submarine operations, we woufd surely 
have been torpedoed. Lieutenant's Bill ("pussy ears") and Rose, 
who were my room-mates, went to bed with their clothes on. I 
thought it only hysterics, and as I had to go on watch at six in 
the morning, undressed as usual and went to bed. I was very 
much surprised to learn that one of the transports of our convoy 
was torpedoed and her passengers and crew taken off in life- 
boats. This was verified at the camp at Winchester by an of- 
ficer acquaintance, who told me he was on the boat and lost 
everything including the clothes he took off when he retired. 

Because of this submarine activity our ship put into Glascow, 
Scotland, instead of going on to Liverpool. About noon of the 
20th of September we came in sight of the rocky coast of Scot- 
land — the Highlands — and entered the Firth of Clyde, which 
gradually narrows to the Clyde river. Bluffs and high ground 
occur on each side sometimes sloping to the water, and all care- 
fully cultivated, hedged and improved, with occasional quaint 
stone-built villages on the banks or higher up a valley. 

We passed the home of Harry Louder, now Sir Harry. A 
group of us were on the top deck behind the bridge ; the shades 

192 



WE LAND AT GLASGOW 

of night were falling and the whole ship load bent to listen to 
Chaplain O'Brien's baritone from our midst : 

"Roaming in the gloaming 

On the bonnie banks of Clyde ; 

Roaming in the gloaming 

With my lassie by my side ; 

When the birds have gone to rest 

That's the time that I like best 

Then we can go roaming in the gloaming." 

About 7 p. m. we were towed through a submarine net, which 
stretches across the Clyde. A middle section was opened by two 
launches to let us through, and then we were beyond the menace 
of the submarine. The trip up the Clyde by night past the great- 
est ship yards in the world, all alight and filled with the noise 
and bustle of the shifts of workmen rushing to beat the depreda- 
tions of the submarine, kept many of us awake until the small 
hours, and in the morning we were tied up to a dock in Glasgow. 
I was turned back at the gangplank by order prohibiting anyone 
from leaving the ship and my most vivid recollection of Glasgow 




THIS IS THE MOST I SAW OP GLASGOW, SCOTLAND 

is of the filthy, stagnant water around the boat ; the whirls of 
garbage stirred by a myriad of sea-gulls continuously diving at 
it, and of other flocks of gulls pluming themselves on the ware- 
house roofs until their turn came to make the garbage dives. 

At noon or thereabouts, we marched a few blocks and 
boarded the, to us, odd English cars more like children's toys 
than real sure enough affairs. But as a Britisher asserted to a 
slighting remark of one of our soldiers : "They do the work," 
and before we were through with the trip of a day and 
night which followed we were able and willing to agree with 
him. The cars were comfortable — fully as much so as ours — we 
traveled as fast, and the roadbeds were most excellent. We were 

193 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

shown: a charming country, particularly in Scotland. Trim, neat, 
weedless in the back as well as in the front, and evidently pros- 
perous. The roads looked fine and one could feel that this would 
be a paradise to journey leisurely through. 

1 We arrived at the ancient town of Winchester just after day- 
light on a Sunday morning, detrained and marched through its 
crooked streets past Alfred-the-Great statue, and up the hill in 
the rain to a camp four miles out. This is Wennel Downs- — 
the camp in which the troops described in "The first One Hundred 
Thousand" which I read on the Scandinavian, were trained 
before going to France. We were accommodated in wooden 
barracks and our brief stay here was pleasant to me because it 
gave me the opportunity to explore perhaps the most interesting 
city in England — Winchester. I cannot stop to describe all I 
saw of interest there or I will not get this letter written, and 
much has happenel here in France about which I must tell you. 
One morning we were marched to Winchester and entrained 
for Southhampton. There we boarded a boat and had the worst 
water experience of all in a one night trip across the channel. We 
landed at La Havre in another rain in the early morning; 
marched through the complication of wharfs and docks, through 
the narrow and crooked streets where the children seemed 
trained to grab your hand and yell "penny," and halted for a 
half-hour still in the rain in a somewhat better part of the city 
where a gendarme chased a dozen women and girls away who 
came among us to sell grapes because they were charging too 
much. But our boys were glad to get them at any price, and 
bought after the police passed on. This was on a street that 
empties into a boulevard that runs between the bathing-beach and 
the gambling places of LaHavre, from which we turned up a hill- 
road running through the finer residential part of the city. 
This, following the European custom, was a high-walled thor- 
oughfare, but through the gate-ways and overrunning the tops 
of the walls we caught glimpses that prompted me to trespass at 
our next rest-period. We were opposite the villa of "La Rosa" 
and just inside the elaborate entrance was the keeper's lodge 
nearly buried in foliage. A French woman in the lodge door 
beckoned me to continue, and following the winding road toward 
the chateau or master's house, a man, probably the gardener, came 
to us — Lieutenant Bill was with me — and showed us around. 

194 



AT ST. GERMAIN DE AUVIAC 

The gardens were terraced and had winding paths lined with 
ancient trees and hedges of box, on the order of Washington's 
garden at Mt. Vernon. There were pergolas and greenhouses ; 
a sun dial and tennis court, and on a terrace above the latter a 
rose-garden with a wonderful variety tied to labeled stakes in 
full bud and bloom. The gardener cut a bud for each of us. At 
the camp here we did not stay a day. The men were quartered 
in camouflaged squad-tents and suggestively near were deep, 
narrow trenches for refuge in case of air raids, while on all 
sides were warning" signs. At seven that night I. was detailed to 
take fifty men back to Havre by truck to load our heavy bag- 
gage, and that night we entrained for Southern France. Com- 
pany E and my company, F, were detailed to go with the 
Sanitary Train under command of Lieutenant Colonel Fletcher 
(you will remember Irma Flannady introduced him to us at the 
Watterson). Captain Kelly, of F Company, was away on detail 
leaving the senior first Lieutenant Johnson in command, and 
much of the time Lieutenant J. was on special duty which left me 
in command. We had more than our full quota of 250 men. It 
fell to my lot to place them in their first French billets as the 
quartering of troops in the houses of the inhabitants is called. 
We detrained at St. Austaire, some seventy-five miles east of 
Bordeaux, in the foothills of the Pyrenees on the Spanish boun- 
dary. Herbert is at Pauillac, about twenty-five miles west of 
Bordeaux, and for a month we were within one hundred miles 
of each other but did not meet. I was directed to march my 
company back off the railroad to the town of St. Germain de 
Auviac and was put on the road by an officer who said, "That 
is the way although I have never been there." But we found 
it a half-hour before dark, and the town major billeted us at the 
village of Aeuriac, a mile and a half over the hills from St. 
Germain. It was pitch dark when we arrived, guided by a small 
French boy, who was proud of the job, and it was a real job I 
had, locating the particular cow-sheds and out-buildings which 
our 250 men were to occupy. We had no candles, no supper, no 
straw for beds, nor ability to dodge the ever-present manure piles. 
Like on the ocean, there was water everywhere, but not a drop 
to drink because people here are so unsanitary that the most 
abundant water — it rains more or less gently every hour or two — 
is unfit, and our men are prohibited from drinking it without 

195 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

previous chlorination, a treatment that makes it nauseating. I 
must pass briefly over our varied experiences here, interesting 
because we came directly in contact with the people and were 




AURIAC, FRANCE. WHERE F COMPANY WAS FIRST BIL- 
LETED. THE COMPANY FORMED ON THIS ROAD FOR 
REVEILLE AND RETREAT. WITH THE COMMANDING OF- 
FICER IN THE FIELD AT THE LEFT 

the first troops from America in that locality. They showed us 
many touching evidences of friendship, but none more tender 
than that shown in their exquisite way, for they are a more re- 
fined people than we, for our dead. The Spanish influenza struck 
ns here, and hit us hard we thought ; we blamed it on seem- 
ingly unnecessary exposures and mismanagement, but the fatal- 
ities were not so great in the end as we have since read about 
with you back in the states. I was suddenly ordered at noon 
conference, October 4, to take Company F to Neuvic for special 
duty. We bad thirty sick, not then known to be with the "flu," 
and all of them were hauled over there. Three days later we 
were relieved and came back. These two moves made our sick 
worse and brought our near-sick down so that our deaths, four, 
were the greatest of any company in the regiment, and at one 
time we had sixty on sick report. It fell to my lot to look after 
the sick and to arrange for the burial of the dead. I had to detail 
our men to make the coffins and dig graves, and had to arrange 
with the mayor for the burial permits under the French laws. 
It wrung my heart to hear the big strong-looking fellows with 
whom it seemed to go the hardest, talk of mother and sweet- 
heart and home in their delirium, to think of them coming so 
far away to die without even the glory of battle, and to have to 
leave them in a far-away grave-yard when our regiment left 
there. But the first Sunday after we laid our six boys of the 

196 



A TOUCH OF THE MUMPS 

regiment in the little cemetery of St. Germain, their graves 
were completely covered with a blanket of beautiful flowers by 
the affectionate people of that commune, and we know the 
grateful hearts of France will cherish those graves as their dear- 
est souvenirs for all time. 

I came down here with the mumps, to which a touch of the 
influenza was added, and was marked "sick in quarters" and 
came near being left when the regiment was ordered north to 
St. Nazaire. But Captain Noonon, of D company, who was in 
the same condition, and I, were carefully transported to the 
entraining station in an ambulance and were afterwards as care- 
fully looked after by Dr. Helfrich, on whose order we were 
admitted to Base Hospital 101, at St. Nazaire. There I had the 
first complete rest since joining the army while convalescing 
during the remainder of the regulation sixteen days for mumps. 
My orders to report to Langres as instructor in the army schools 
came while in this hospital. 

A few days after discharge from the hospital I started for 
Langres, via Paris, and stayed as long in the latter city, a day and 
a night, as the military police would permit. Langres is a walled 
city on top of a high hill up which travelers from the railway 
station are carried in a special train over a cogged road. The 
town is a quaint one and furnished subjects for several sketches 
that my limited time while waiting for transportation to Fort 
Plesnoy, my destination, afforded. The river Marne flows 
below the hill and the headwaters of the Meuse are in sight to the 
southeast. The city is defended by a circle of forts of which 
Plesnoy is one. Arriving at Fort Plesnoy I found that Lieu- 
tenant Colonel Fulmer, whom I had served under at Camp Tay- 
lor, was in command. He said he had asked for me in March 
of this year, but headquarters replied that they had brought so 
many officers from the states that they could not grant the re- 
quest, but would have me detailed as soon as my division landed 
in France, which accounts for the order that Colonel Bain noti- 
fied me of as soon as we reached St. Germain, and to which he 
replied, as I previously wrote you, that I was needed with my 
regiment and company and could not be spared unless the re- 
quirements of the service made it imperative. Had I gone to 
Langres in March or early in October from St. Germain I would 
have seen much more of the actual fighting, which has been my 

197 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

great desire, and it will always be a matter of keenest regret that 
I was unable to get to the front until the very last days. This 
reminds me of my experience with the World's Fair at Chicago. 
I wanted to go all summer long, and was constantly as close 
as Indianapolis, but did not get to see the fair until the after- 
noon of the last day — the same day that Mayor Carter Harri- 
son was shot. And I could not go to the Centennial Exhibition 
at Philadelphia in 1876, but saw the buildings at Fairmont Park 
when I went to school at Chester the next fall. 

Remembering my desire expressed to him at Camp Taylor to 
see this war in the front lines, Colonel Fulmer told me at our 
first interview that he had authority to send instructors from his 
school ; that it was now between terms and a dozen of the in- 
structors were at the front ; he could send me over if I cared to 
go. Do you believe when the opportunity came I could not help 
hesitating. What if I should be among those who were unlucky 
enough not to come back^ It was easy to theorize on the small 




IU'INS OF MONTFAUCON, LOOKINi'. KAST TOWARD VERDUN 

percentage killed, but as thousands were killed I might be one 
of that number. This and more came quickly, but I managed to 
answer that such an opportunity was just what I wanted. I 
have often wondered how I would act when the test came, and 
am writing this after it is all over. So much has happened in so 
short a time that my ideas are in a whirl of confusion. I have 
neglected to keep a diary — in fact could not have gotten my 
ideas together if I'd had the time, and while the greatest impres- 

198 



A TRIP TO THE FRONT 

sions of my life were made in a few days since that interview, it 
will take years for it all to come back in full detail, and I shall 
only attempt now to give incoherently what happened. 

Colonel Fulmer stated that my work with him would be 
largely the illustration of military pamphlets describing field 
maneuvers in musketry and the support of troops by machine- 
guns, trench mortars, tanks, v. bs., etc., and it was necessary for 
the draftsman to see the real conditions in order to be able to 
picture them correctly. 

We left Ft. Plesnoy and passing several miles west of Verdun 
intercepted United States motor transportation going up to the 
front along the Meuse river east of Grand Pre, with ammu- 
nition and supplies that night. I was transferred to an ambu- 
lance which was returning for another load of our wounded and 
by good luck got a seat with the driver. 1 supposed my uniform 
and appearance allayed any doubt as to my right to proceed, but 
the ambulance rion com. assured me it was easier to go forward 
than to go back as there were so many trying to get out of the 
danger zone. Soon after leaving the vicinity between Mont- 
faucon and Verdun we could see the light from occasional flares, 
and hear the noise of artillery, but not to as great an extent as I 
had anticipated so close to the front line. I was assured, how- 
ever, that the calm was probably momentary, and that we might 
be hit or gassed at any moment. My outfit, by the way, was a 
gas mask, steel helmet, haversack, messkit and rations, light pack 
containing two bankets, revolver and belt with an issue of am- 
munition, a towel and soap, and two extra pairs of socks. 

I slept for two hours on the night of November 8 in a dug- 
out, and nearly broke my neck by slipping on the steep wet stairs 
after bumping against the low head-room just beyond the inner 
gas curtain. My bunk was warm from the heat of the man who 
had recently left it to go on duty. I had buttered toast for break- 
fast but that was the last, as a chance shell knocked the cook's 
field range out a few hours later. Met an officer of the Eighty- 
fourth Division who told me the division had all been split to 
pieces and practically abandoned about the time my regiment left 
St. Germain, and the regiments scattered by companies through 
other divisions, which had been depleted. That our General 
Hale was in command of the Twenty-sixth Division. And this was 

199 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

the fate of the Eighty-fourth, the pride of Louisville and of Ken- 
tucky and Indiana. The officer, I have forgotten his name if he 
told me, which I am not sure as he was one of my old students 
at the Eighty-fourth Division Engineer School, asked if I 

knew Captain C of his regiment. I inquired if he meant a 

t>hort, chunky, pock-marked officer. He replied in the affirma- 
tive and said he had been wounded ; that he got to drinking when 
he came in contact with the abundant cognac and French wines, 
and his colonel thought the best place for him was at the front. 

I knew C well. You remember I introduced him to you at 

the Sherman community-house. He was in the same training 
camp with me at Fort Harrison before I was discharged for 
over-age, and it was he who suggested that I go to Washington 
and plead my re-enlistment. 

The reason I did not sleep more than two hours, if that, is 
I ecause I was awakened by an explosion that lifted me clear out 
of the top bunk I was occupying. Some voice in the darkness, 
said, "What the hell!" and another answered. "Well! if your 
not dead, why worry? noise comes last!" Outside the fury was 
.\ orse than any thunderstorm, — for, besides the roar of ex- 
ploding shells, there were the devilish shrieks of those passing 
o\ er. that made one feel, not so much like dodging, as like crawl- 
ing into a deep hole that only stopped at the center of the earth. 
We owned a dog on Illinois street once that shook and crawled 
with fear at the noise of the giant firecrackers and other fire 
works every Fourth of July night, and no amount of scolding 
or beating could drive him out from under the bed. That was 
t 1 e way I felt. But I was too scared to stay inside in the dark. 
In our military training we had been warned that dug-outs were 
no defense against howitzer shells and were often veritable gas 
death-traps. At any rate, I pulled myself together, and finding 
T was not bleeding and could walk, adjusted my gas-mask and 
crept outside. It seemed our men were making a raid. Their bar- 
rage was being answered, and the artillery of both sides were in 
full operation. The flares and rockets which lit portions of the 
outer darkness made the rest more intense. It was just before 
dawn when the night is normally blackest that I groped along 
our trench and put my hand at the turn of a traverse on some- 
thing warm and soft and moist, near the edge of the parapet. 
My horror was complete when a flash of light revealed that I 

200 



OVER THE TOP 



had put my hand on the uncovered brains of a shrapneled 
soldier. 

Then came a rush over our parapet and a dozen men were 
pushed into the trench on both sides of me. They proved to be 
German prisoners, who were followed with prodding bavonets 
by our own boys who had made a hurried run back across No- 
Man's-Land, and were in great haste to get under cover of our 
trenches with their Bosch captives. 

As I was there only as an observer I had no intention of 
going over the top myself. I was quite satisfied to get my infor- 
mation and impressions for that part of it at second hand be- 
cause it called for 
alertness of a man 
in his prime and my 
bayonet practice at 
Sherman and 
scouting drills at 
Ft. Harrison had 
sufficiently demon- 
strated that at the 
age of fifty-seven, 
while I was equal 
to the best on a 
straight-away hike 
and general endur- 
ance, I was not as 
light on my feet as 
I once was, nor as most of my comrades who were less than half 
my age. I did not feel that rashness on my part was indicative 
of bravery, but more the sign of a lack of good sense. 

During the following morning I was permitted to visit one 
cf our outposts. Sniping was not practiced from there as it 
would have led to an exposure of the position which was excel- 
lent for seeing what was going on in Germany. At another part 
of our line, however, I took a peep through one of the alternate 
sniper's positions and had a shot at what I took to be a Bosch, 
but the expert rifleman whose gun I used said I had not hit a 
Dutchman for one very good reason that there was none where I 
pointed the gun. On his advice we changed to another station, 
because, he said, my shot had exposed that one. Our exit was 

20 1 




CHOW TIME IN THE TRENCHES. NOTE THE EN- 
TRANCE TO A DUGOUT TO THE LEFT OF THE 
MAN WHO IS WATCHING THROUGH A PERISCOPE 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



hurried a little by the hum of a bullet close to where I had rested 
my piece for firing. 

That afternoon I was back in the support and reserve and 
recently recovered territory in an automobile with one of the 
staff from general headquarters who was on a tour of inspec- 
tion and liaison and I was particularly interested as you may be 
sure in the camouflage. This was not carried out as thoroughly 
as I had been led to expect and hope for, particularly since see- 
ing the extensive use on guns and wagons for front area service 
unloading" at St. Nazaire. Many of the roads, however, were 
screened and many of the dumps camouflaged as we had taught 
it, as were the vehicles and guns, and all of the artillery and 

nachine-gun em- 
placements were 
carefully camou- 
flaged, partic- 
ularly against 
overhead obser- 
vation. 

This reminds 
me of what I 
saw of aeroplane 
maneuver. We 

could hear the whirr and unmuffled pop-pop of the planes, 
and I was surprised at how low those said to be German dared 
to fly. Dozens of planes in squadrons and singly and in pairs 
and threes passed back and forth at various elevations, but, on a 
whole, not much more numerously than we saw overhead at 
Camp Mills, and no aerial battles were fought while I was at 
the front. 

Today there were persistent rumors that an armistice would 
be arranged with Germany on terms dictated by the Allies, with 
envoys from Berlin now at General Foch's headquarters. The 
Allies' advance, however, was not to be halted or abated. 

November 10, 1918: This date is notable as that of the 
last whole fighting day of the war, and to me was one of the most 
varied and interesting. I awoke this morning east of the Meuse 
river, somewhere in the open to the south of Stenay, and north 
of Verdun. Have never had a well defined knowledge of just 
where, and in fact it is the hardest thing for me to locate myself 

202 




TRANSPORTATION OF AMERICAN TROOPS BY 

MOTOR TRUCK ON CAMOUFLAGED ROADS WEST 

OF VERDUN, XOYEMBER 9, CMS 



THE AMERICAN RIFLEMAN 

geographically in France unless some one points his finger at the 
spot on the map. I do not understand the language, and the 
names you hear spoken do not read on the map at all like they 
sound. Then there are towns about every mile or two and they 
all look alike. Wherever it was I slept, I know it was fearfully 
cold, and on about the hardest ground I ever tried for a bed. 
Fortunately, in all of my military experience now going on two 
years, I have had reasonably good beds— even in the dug-out— I 
slept on a bed-bottom of a double layer of chicken wire, and it 
was not cold down there, though far from dry and sweet. I 
was not unbearably miserable were it not for the infernal noises 
of the bombardment and consequent fright. I feared that morn- 
ing that my exposure was bound to give me a backset, as I was 
barely over the mumps and influenza, and have had a nasty cold 
in my head and bronchial tubes. I felt that I would hate like 
thunder to live through all the horrors of war and die in France 
of pneumonia. I have seen the ground strewn with the dead, 
but for some reason the fate of those who died in battle is not 
so unbearably sad to me as was the end of those of our boys who 
died at St. Germain of the Spanish influenza, and whose bodies 
were left in the grave-yard there. 

What I saw this last day was not purely trench warfare. 
The enemy was being pushed back so rapidly that it was a ques- 
tion of flank movement ; of fighting much in the open, and the 
seeking of all available cover. The superior marksmanship of 
the American soldier and the usefulness of the rifle when prop- 
erly handled against the machine-gun and in conjunction with 
the tank, and Stokes and other mortars, and the little "37" was 
practically demonstrated again and again. And this utility of 
the rifle, so much neglected in the previous years of this war, 
has been redemonstrated and that weapon resurrected, or rather, 
re-enthroned by the soldiers such as have been particularly 
trained at the Army Infantry Specialists' School with which I 
am now identified. It is said that more than once the army of the 
Allies was saved from annihilation and defeat by the American 
soldier and his rifle. 

The first offensive of today under my observation was by 
infantry and tanks against the enemy machine-guns. With the 
machine-gun the German soldier is particularly at home and ef- 
ficient. Our scouts advanced in three columns; back of these 

203 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

were four tanks — one on each flank and two between, and back 
of the tanks the deployed troops. The scouts in the middle 
drew machine fire from enemy concealment straight ahead and 
sought cover at once by dropping to the ground, and while prone 
they signalled to the tanks by placing their helmets on the muz- 
zles of their rifles, pointed in the direction of the machine-gun 
fire. The two middle tanks crept forward to the indicated 
area and traveling right and left across it soon uncovered the 
camouflaged Bosches and put them out of existence by opening 
fire on or crushing them by running over them. While this was 
taking place the scouts in the two side columns passed on and 
drew the German fire still further in advance. 

The tanks were again signalled to come on and wipe up the 
new Bosch nests, and thus, step by step, but irresistably cer- 
tain, the Americans advanced and the Germans became more 
panicky. 

I can not begin to remember in detail all that I saw that day 
nor the order in which it happened, though I tried hard to do so 
to be able to make some kind of a report to my superiors. I saw 
the infantry advance by rushes and by crawling toward the 
enemy ; I saw our men cruelly mowed down by German bullets. 
It is sickening to recall it all, and makes one shudder at the reck- 
less waste of human life — of our brave boys writhing in death — 
for they do not all die easily ; and with their maimed and mangled 
limbs and bodies, with their vitals dragging or protruding and 
still instinct with life, they often prayed to God to be merciful and 
let them live to go back to wife and children or to mother or 
some sweetheart who would see them no more. 

The picture of war may be painted royally to us, and as sub- 
lime, but in reality there is often a lack of courage and resigna- 
tion on the part of the helpless victim. He pleads and he curses 
and sometimes but not nearly always he is the calm hero we like 
to think he is and to read about. He is stricken in the prime of 
life, he has not been weakened physically nor in will power by 
slow disease, and the realization comes home to him suddenly and 
with a shock that he — not some other remote individual, but that 
he — must die, and he does not want to die ! 

I saw them fall like leaves that day, but those who were un- 
touched did not falter. They had been taught that thev must not 
stop even to give relief to those, their most intimate friends, but 

204 



THE AUTOMATIC RIFLE IN ACTION 

must go on, "carry on," as they say it now, and they carried on 
in a way that has surprised the world and makes every one of us 
proud who was lucky enough to live through it. I saw the 
American soldier unaided save by the fire of his rifle and his 
skill with the bayonet wring victory from the German armed 
with his favorite weapon, the machine-gun, and I saw the Amer- 
ican soldier supported by comrades with the automatic rifle 





AMERICAN INFANTRYMEN RESTING AFTER A SUCCESSFUL DRIVE. THE 

DARK PATCHES ARE SHELL HOLES AND "FOX HOLE" SHELTERS 

HASTILY DUG BY THE MEN IN THEIR ADVANCE 

which two of them carried in their forward rushes displaying 
marvelous feats of valor. One poor fellow who would have been 
so entangled in the strap over his shoulder supporting the gun 
as to have rendered the latter useless, exerted his last remaining 
strength when shot to death, in removing the strap and immedi- 
ately his substitute took his place and continued firing and ad- 
vancing without any noticeable interruption. 

Thus did I see real war. The last day of the great war, and 
God grant, the last day of the Last War ! and near the close of 
the last day I literally looked into the shadow of the Valley of 
Death. Thousands of human beings were being marshaled be- 
low me, and on them man's deadliest inventions were being op- 
erated by experts. 

Our troops in the lowlands below were being mowed down 
by enemy bullets coming from somewhere not far up the oppo- 
site slope; but the Americans had been unable to suppress them 
with the rifle and automatics. A battery of mortars close to my 

205 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

left had been belching explosive shells high into the air against the 
enemy near the crest of a ridge nearly a mile away. At a sig- 
nal from our troops below, the mortars were ranged on the indi- 
cated patch across the valley where the enemy guns were supposed 
to be. In a very few minutes the earth began to spout up in 
clouds of smoke from bursting shells at intervals of seconds only 
from one end of the suspected patch to the other, and it was 
evident to us that no human being could remain alive there. The 
enemy offensive was silenced and our men advanced without 
further casualties from that direction. 

Our right flank was being riddled by a nest of machine-guns 
in the military crest of the ridge a half-mile further in that di- 
rection. My attention was called to a party of men in triangular 
formation advancing in front and to our right. A couple of men 
at the outside angles were carrying heavy burdens which the 
major who called attention to them said were the dismantled 
parts of a small cannon — the little "37" or one pounder. The 
men all presently dropped to the ground and gradually worked 
themselves forward with their burdens borne on their prone 
bodies. They reached a place where a ground-swell covered 
them from the machine-gun fire of the enemy. They quickly 
mounted the gun and fired shot after shot with marvelous accu- 
racy into the spot on the distant hillcrest and as quickly that 
Bosch machine-gun went out of business. 

Our soldiers on the left were rushing a German trench in 
the gathering twilight below. We could see them jump into and 
disappear in the trenches after delivering a fusillade of grenades 
which roared and smoked, and we could follow their progress by 
the explosions of the hand grenades, which their scouts and mop- 
pers-up continued to throw. The noise was deafening and in its 
midst the major and I instinctively ducked when a vicious buzz 
passing between us indicated how near an enemy bullet came to 
having "one of our names on it" as the soldier fatalities say. 
The view was being rapidly obscured by the smoke from phos- 
phorous and other grenades thrown by the trench raiders and 
the shells of the barrage by both contending armies. The 
gathering gloom was illuminated by the myriad signals rock- 
eted into the sky and born north by the wind from supporting 
parachutes. There were single red, green and white lights ; 
three-point rockets and six-point ones and the "catterpillars" 

206 



NEWS OF THE ARMISTICE 

which wiggled their myriad points in suspension as they drifted 
with the wind. As a purely pyrotechnic display it was magnifi- 
cent, and with all of its accompanying roar and realism can never 
be duplicated except by the toll and terror which a world panic 
such as we have been through can compel. It became apparent 
that a general attack by our troops was in progress. The Ger- 
man resistance soon broke, and another American advance was 
consummated. 




"REST." AMERICAN MACHINE GUNS AND SUPPLY WAGONS HALTED IN 

A RUINED TOWN TO AWAIT THE COMMAND TO PRESS ON INTO 

GERMANY 

Monday, November n. 'Reliable information was received 
early today that the Kaiser had abdicated, the crown prince and 
others had relinquished all claim to the succession, and that an 
armistice as dictated by the Allies would be signed by n a. m. 
today. The terms of the armistice were not known to any with 
whom I talked, but all were of the opinion that the war was 
over. I took advantage of the opportunity of returning to 
Langres by Government ambulance going on through to one of 
the hospitals and was able to reach Fort Plesnoy in time for 
supper. We passed Verdun and St. Mihiel of special interest. 
Langres was making preparations to celebrate the signing of the 
armistice that night, and Lieutenant Whidney just from Paris 
on a three-day pass reported the greatest times ever known in 
that city. At the fort I learned that all but three of the instruct- 
ors who went to the front had returned. Of the three absen- 
tees, two were afterwards reported wounded and in hospital 

207 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



and the third, Lieutenant Charles B. Busey, killed. He was from 
Urbana, 111., twenty miles from Tuscola, where I was reared. 

I have just read over this long letter and note many mis- 
spelled words which I shall not try to correct as I have no dic- 
tionary. The machine I am using is an old one that hops and 
skips around without any authority, and has a universal key- 
board which I am not used to. This by way of apology if you 
have trouble reading what I have written. I also note that I 
said camouflage was not used as generally as I had expected to 
see. On further reflection I have decided that I was mistaken 
in that statement. Nearly everything was camouflaged but not 
always in the manner I expected. Not so much brown, green 
and yellow paint, for example, and in fact very little paint except 
on Runs and wheeled vehicles finished that way when issued. 

The observation 
posts which we cul- 
tivated too reli- 
giously for our own 
safety were all 
camouflaged with 
mud to match the 
sod, stone, brush or 
surroundings in a 
manner too ordi- 
nary and obvious 
for special com- 
ment, and yet ef- 
fectively. Several 
ox the gun emplacements were hid by hanging or laying jute cloth 
over them. This cloth at this time of year harmonizes thoroughly 
with the dry grass and leaves which predominate. A splendid 
specimen of sniper's or scout's robe which I saw in use was made 
of this jute or gunny sacking, made up in loose garments having 
long frayed edges exposed at the seams and all over the head 
dress. The soldier wearing this robe was absolutely indistin- 
guishable at less than one hundred yards when lying down. 
Another case which I now recall was of the relay men who sup- 
plied ammunition to the one-pound cannon. 

I have described how the dismounted cannon was moved out 
to position across an exposed area. Relays of men at about fifty 
yard intervals extended from the ammunition wagon to the gun. 

208 




A LULL, NOVEMBER 10, 1918, EAST OF THE 

MEUSE. THE DRIVE HAD BEEN TOO FAST TO 

STOP TO CAMOUFLAGE THE GUNS 



FORT DE PLESNOY 

If where they could walk with safety, a man from a rear station 
took a small hand-case of ammunition to the next forward sta- 
tion, left it and brought back an empty. But in the exposed 
places the relay men had to lay flat on the ground and they 
pulled the cases from one to the other with ropes which they 
first threw across. The men were smeared with mud and so 
were the cases, and all were indistinguishable at two hundred 
yards distance. I had to be told about it or would not have 
seen them, or known what was going on. 

Affectionately, your husband. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

LIFE IN A FRENCH FORT 

One must cross the Marne, which here is a small stream, in 
going from Langres to Fort de Plesnoy. The latter is on the 
far side of another plateau which the wagon road ascends with 
such an easy grade that the elevation is scarcely realized, until 
the neck that the fort is on begins to narrow so we can see over 
the edges into a valley on either side. Within a half-mile of the 
fort we pass battery number one, where are wooden barracks 
full of student soldiers, and there is no other sign of a fort until 
our road, seemingly running into a low sodded bank, makes a 
sharp turn and before we can say "Jack Robinson" we are 
through the outer gate across a bridged moat and are halted in 
an inside street that goes entirely around a heavy stone structure 
the size of a city block, roofed with a hill of earth on which 
grass and trees are growing. Two streets reached by under- 
ground passages divide the middle of the block into three parts 
and let light and air down the rows of long and narrow arched 
vaults that serve as barracks for the officer-instructors of the 
Army Infantry Specialists' School. My particular cell had twelve 
cots on a side and those on one side had to move over to let me 
in between Lieutenant "Jimmy" Byers and the stove. Lieu- 
tenant Gaisser had a bunk at the end of my row, which he slept 
in occasionally when he wasn't courting his girl at Langres, and 
Stevens and Palmer and a score of other good fellows whom I 

209 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

learned to know and love, played poker, joked and sang me to 
sleep at night. I didn't object to thera, but I did to being so near 
the stove, which the far fellows wanted kept red hot to dry the 
moisture that soaked down through the mass of earth banked 
over our arched roof. Eventually I was given a room to myself 
in one of the French officers' cottages just outside of the fort 
where the ranking officers of our school and our two Y. M. C. A. 
women were quartered. 

Our fort, now dismantled of its guns, which were doing more 




AN AMERICAN OUTPOST CLOSE TO A GERMAN LINE NORTHEAST 
OF VERDUN 



needed service at the front, was defended by four other gunless 
batteries and from the top of the artificial hill under which the 
fort was buried the steeples of Langres and the houses of six- 
nearer towns were in sight. The nearest was Plesnoy, at the 
foot of our hill, and from which the fort was named. 

The atelier of the art department of which I was put in 
charge, was adjoining the private office of the commandant, who 
had a laudible appreciation of the value of pictures for impart- 
ing information. He wanted his artists at his elbow, and had 
three of unusual ability at the time I arrived. Second Lieuten- 
ant Whidney, promoted to a first lieutenancy a few days after 

2IO 



AN OFFICERS' DINNER 

my arrival, had been a commercial artist at Chicago. He entered 
the army as a private after the United States declared war, and 
won the prize for marksmanship in the British army to which he 
was attached, over crack British shots, and was promoted from 
the ranks. He was a very talented pen artist and particularly 
excelled here in stencil drawing for mimeograph reproduction. 
We thought at Camp Taylor that we were hard to beat, but 
Lieutenant Whidney's work was uniformly better. Second 
Lieutenant Charles Gaisser's talent amounted to genius ; but he 
was moody, hard to understand and worked only when in the 
humor, while Whidney, with possibly less talent, was always on 
the job. Both of them had French sweethearts at Langres. 
Whidney's rapture was abated somewhat by the knowledge 
that his lady friend had a fiance in the French army, but Gais- 
ser's sensitive soul was torn by a dread that he was not worthy 
of the angel he courted and would wed, if she would have him. 
Gaisser was from Alabama and had been in the army ever since 
he was eighteen. He had been promoted from the ranks, had 
been gassed, which still affected his lungs, and had lost a brother 
in the Argonne. He had more worldly knowledge than he 
needed on some subjects, and on others he had less — the value 
of a dollar for example— but he married the little French girl 
before I left France and the sensible way in which she started 
with him in life makes me feel that she will make a great man of 
him, for he has the ability. Whidney near died of pneumonia 
at Langres, and was invalided back to the states, while Gaisser 
and I continued together at Chaumont where I learned to know 
him better, and to think as much of him as I could of a son of 
my own. The third artist was Sergeant Baney, who had taught 
drawing in the public schools of his native Michigan, but was 
kept down by his ranking associates at sign painting and copy 
work, which they passed to him until he mutinied and forced me 
to file charges against him. The school closed before he was 
brought to trial ; we were soon scattered and the case was 
dropped, for which I am not sorry, as it was a matter of temper- 
ment getting the better of judgment. 

Then we had an orderly who was the only one about the fort 
capable of coaxing a dilapidated mimeograph into doing good 
work. He began to swear as soon as he started on a job, and 
knew more cuss words than any man I ever met in the army. 

211 



THE AMERICAN' SPIRIT 






Hi 14 £M 









I 




212 



THANKSGIVING EVE DANCE 

Only his infrequent pauses disturbed the placidity of our 
thoughts enough to make us turn our heads to see if he had 
fainted or the Lord had sent a merited judgment upon him. 

Our studio or atelier had but a single window, through the 
thick outer wall of the fort and looking into the moat. The 
moat was fifty feet wide and nearly as deep, and our window 
and those everywhere were heavily barred, I suppose to repel 
invaders, but they were equally suggestive of a jail. Artificial 
lights were needed all of the time and to additionally try our 
eyes our coal stove would fill the room with smoke whenever the 
sodded camouflage over us turned the wind down the stove 
pipe as quite frequently happened. In general the surroundings 
were dark, damp and dismal. Outside was beaucoup rain and 
mud; inside we groped through unlighted tunnels that led to but 
one cheerful place in the whole fort — the officers' mess hall. 
This was large enough to comfortably seat the entire 150 of us 
instructors, with room to spare, and the extra space was used as 
a lounging and reading room. The ceiling of the hall was in 
six groined arches, low springing but wide and high, giving a 
feeling of spaciousness and strength that one never lost ; but 
the hall was so dark that electric lights were needed for every 
meal. Some philanthropist from the states had donated a plate- 
rail and paneled wainscoting which added much to the cheerful- 
ness of the place. This hall was festooned with autumn foliage 
for a Thanksgiving eve dance in which real pumpkins and 
shocks of corn helped to make round corners for the dancers 
and screened retreats where a prodigality of mistletoe signaled 
the zero hour for valiant assaults all evening on the defense- 
less Red Cross and signal corps girls. Upon the insistance of 
several of the bashful warriors a six-foot canvas separated the 
males from the females at the beginning of the dance, and the 
ladies had to pick their partners from appealing hands held over 
a wall that hid the rest of every man except Captain Robbins, 
whose six feet-six easily chinned it. 

On Thanksgiving night a score of officers who had just been 
promoted, gave a dinner to the rest of us in honor of themselves. 
All the varieties of French wine flowed without stint after the 
colonel and our two Y. M. C. A. girls had discreetly retired. 
The rule was that each of the hosts was to dance, sing, or tell a 
story, and when I quit after midnight the half who were not 

213 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

under the table were denouncing the Central Powers and the 
Allies alike for signing an armistice on the very day that they 
were promoted. Of course some one told the "Oh, mother, 
the nerve of Emily ! praying for peace when father's just been 
made a captain," story and I remember a few of the others. 

One who had been with a colored regiment at the front be- 
fore he was detailed to this school told about a black infantryman 
who claimed he wasn't afraid to go over the top on a raid, but 
begged off because his shoes were too big for him, "An' ef I had 
to run much ma shoes is so loose day'll hurt ma feet so I cain't 
keep up a-tall an' because which I'll jes hole back the others a 
waitin' foh me !" He continually shirked danger, was lazy, 
slouchy and fit for nothing but to manage the kitchen mule. One 
day he forgot to salute the colonel of another regiment. That 
officer stopped him and said: "See here, my man, don't you 
know enough to salute an officer?" "Yassah, I does sah ; but yo 
see boss, I ain't a workin' fo' you !" Finally his major took him 
personally in hand with the declaration that he would make him 
a good soldier or a dead nigger. In a month or six weeks 
the training was so efficient that Mose begged for a chance to 
go over the top, and when a call came one day for volunteers he 
went to his captain and asked : "Don' dis yah volunteerin' mean 
yo kin go ef yo wants to ?" 

"Yes." 

"Well, I wants to sore go, all right." 

"Very well, Mose. See the corporal and he'll fix it so you 
can." 

"But, Cap'n I'se done saw de corporal 'bout it." 

"Well, what did he say?" 

"Why he des say to me : go 'long yo' Mose and quit yo' 
kiddin'." 

Another story was credited to Arthur Cobb as told by him in 
the A. E. F. A negro soldier questioned by a black sergeant as 
to his employment in civil life, said he was a lion tamer. 

"Won't believe dat, nigger, less I sees yo' tame some lions." 

"Cain't tame none heah when day ain't no lions heah to 
tame, kin I ?" 

But he went on to describe just how he tames them. Walks 
into a cage of lions, whip in hand, picks out the lion he wants to 
tame, drives it in a corner by itself, and all the other lions into 

214 



JIMMY BYERS SOUNDS A KEYNOTE 

another corner by themselves ; keeps his eye on his lion all the 
time and as it goes to spring on him he grabs the lion's tongue 
when it opens its mouth to bite him, gives the lion's tongue a 
quick twist and that tames the lion right off. 

"What dat name yo' done said yo' is?" 

"Lion tamer." 

"Lion tamer nothin' man, you is a lyin' nigger!" 

A new lieutenant, known himself to be a gay Lothario — 

"So daring in love and so dauntless in war, 

Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?" 
told the storv of a female in his native town of Michigan who 
waited ten years for her lover to save enough money with which 
to buy them a home, and then he married another girl. She was 
so broken hearted that she threw herself away, becoming a pub- 
lic character. Her name was Charlotte, and when she died the 
men about town decided that she deserved some kind of a memo- 
rial and raised a subscription for a tombstone. One of them, a 
lawyer, was detailed to write the inscription, and the next morn- 
ing he submitted the following : 

"Here lie the bones of good old Charlotte, 

Who was born a virgin and died a harlot : 

For seventeen years she kept her virginity 

Which isn't bad for this vicinity." 

I was still sleeping in the big squad room in the fort. Too 
much wine makes some men mean, others silly and many deter- 
mined to tell all their secrets to the world. I didn't know which 
class I might land in ; so slipped away in time and went to bed. 
I am not a sound sleeper anyway and was awakened by my 
nearest "bunkie," Jimmy Ryers, in his effort to steer himself to 
bed by the light of a short candle that he stood up in its own 
grease on the lid of my locker reached by him in a series of 
hinges. The locker helped to make my French cot long enough 
at the foot, and Jimmy's loudly expressed thoughts convinced me 
that he was in the last class above mentioned and quite likely 
to set me on fire. 

"What'll I tell my father?" he demanded of the black and 
seemingly empty space, "Me a fighting man and haven't seen a 
battle or a front line trench — sent here three months as instruct- 
or and kept here nine till the war's over ! What am I going to 
say to my father about that ? Can't lie to him ! Can't tell my 

215 



, THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

father- 1, s,aw fighting when I didn't. No, can't lie to my father: 
but what'll I say to him and what'll he say to me? Me — a fight- 
ing man, But. I can't help it ! Why should I care when I can't 
help it ? I don't care ! Ask me ! ask me if I care !" 

He paused for a reply to his challenge, but there was none 
and he repeated still louder 

"I can't help it! I don't care! Somebody ask me if I care!" 







JIMMY BYERS: "I CAN'T HELP IT! I DON'T CARE! ASK ME!" 



Still no answer. Then he stumbled down to the far end of the 
room where a special chum lay snoring, with his clothes on. 
Rousing him he demanded : 

"What'll I tell my father about this war now it's over and I 
wasn't in it, me, a fighting man — what'll I tell him? But I 
can't help it ! Ask me if I can help it ! Ask me !" 

"Can you help it, Jimmy?" was the accommodating inquiry. 

"No! I can't help it, and I don't care! Ask me if I care! 
Ask me!" 

"Do you care, Jimmy?" 

"No, I don't care! Why should I care? I can't help it! I 
don't care !" 

And he went out to hunt another drink leaving his short 
piece of candle burning closer to the blankets over my feet. As 
a matter of self-protection I crawled down and blew it out and 

216 



THE ARMISTICE BROKE OUR MORALE 

was just getting into another doze when his voice aroused me 
with the demand : 

"W-ho blew 'at can'le out? Dirty mean trick blow out my 
can'le. Who blew 'at out?" 

There was no answer. He stumbled through the door again 
and after a while came back with a shorter lighted piece, which 
he planted on my locker, where the first candle was, and fell into 
bed with boots and spurs on, leaving it for me to again blow out 
the candle. 

Lieutenant Gaisser heard and saw the whole performance 
from his bunk at the end of our row, and we afterwards com- 
mented on the fact that Jimmy expressed the feeling of most of 
us who would have preferred action at the front and were sorely 
disappointed at the sudden and unsatisfactory termination of the 
war. Jimmy's challenge, "I can't help it! I don't care! ask me!" 
became a by-word with us while we were together later at 
Chaumont. 

The signing of the armistice broke the morale of the Amer- 
ican army. Its civilian soldiers had been content to submit to 
the rigor of army life as long as there was an enemy to conquer, 
but when there wasn't they began to think of home, and those 
overseas lost sight of the fact that it would take almost as long 
to ship them back as it did to get them over; even if it were a 
desirable thing to leave in a hurry. The more they thought of 
home the more discontented, restless and homesick they grew. I 
know full well because I was as unreasonable as any and took 
the first opportunity to express my state of mind to my colonel. 
In imagination my fame had spread all over France as a cam- 
oufleur. I had put in operation the novel ideas developed at 
Taylor and Sherman and had citations, medals, and fourragere 
galore for helping the Allies to win the war. Perhaps I had 
expressed some disappointment in being detailed to Fort Plesnoy 
instead of Fort St. Menge, but Colonel Fulmer had promised to 
send me over to study the camouflage school and the seductive 
idea of sketching the great battlefields had done the rest toward 
reconciling me to a fate I couldn't control anyway. I was as 
helpless as Jimmy Byers, and then the armistice must come to 
spoil everything! I reminded the colonel of his promises. The 
camouflage school was still functioning and now was the excep- 
tional opportunity to study the battlefields before time and the 

217 



THE AMERICAN SIM KIT 




":lr ; V' :Ai 







— "-.Uf 



•^ .■ v - :-; 




WHY I STAID IN THE ARMY 

hand of man had smoothed out the scars of war and while the 
cessation of hostilities now made a study of the works of both 
sides possible for the first time. He gave me an order to go 
to Fort St. Menge in a side car next morning, and said he would 
have to take up the battlefields trip with General Smith at army 
schools headquarters. 

"By the way," he continued, "there is an order out from G. 5 
closing our school here on December 31. I am to report to G. 5 
at Chaumont and want you to go with me." 

"Thank you, Colonel, for the compliment, but what I want 
most now is to be sent home for a discharge from the army." 

"You can do some very valuable work yet along the line I 
have been talking to you about, and will be more pleasantly sit- 
uated at general headquarters." 

"But, sir, the war's over now and I have no personal interest 
in the army. I can't afford to work longer on a lieutenant's pay." 

"You can't be paid more than your rank calls for. If you'd 
gotten here sooner I could have made you a captain with these 
last promotions and in time a major ; but since the armistice Sec- 
retary Baker has ordered all promotions stopped. It caught me 
by just a day on an approved recommendation for a full colon- 
elcy. Those things can't be helped, but we should both have 
pride and patriotism enough to be willing to help in giving the 
experiences of the late war to our country in the best possible 
form." 

"That's a strong appeal, Colonel, but the army itself has 
shown very little appreciation of the sacrifices I have made and 
services I've rendered so far, and it can now find someone else 
willing to work for a lieutenant's pay. It is no longer a question 
of patriotism, for the Germans are whipped, otherwise I would 
be willing to go on indefinitely for nothing. At present my first 
duty is to my family and not to the army." 

The colonel always had a quiet way of carrying his point and 
he proceeded thus to convert me to his way of thinking: 

"If you don't let me help you in this matter you'll probably be 
sent back to your regiment. The engineers have to repair the 
roads of France and will be the last to leave. I think it will suit 
you better to help me finish the manuals ; I can help you to see a 
lot of France and get you home ahead of your organization if 
that's agreeable to you." 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE CAMOUFLAGE SCHOOL AT FT. ST. MENGE, FRANCE 

A side car and man to drive it was at my disposal next morn- 
ing. We went to Langres and from there to Fort St. Menge, 
situated on a higher hill than ours at Plesnoy. The fort is dif- 
ferently planned in that it incloses a large open interior for offi- 
cers' dwellings and sundry buildings including a small stone 
church. The camouflage school headquarters was in one of the 
buildings within the fort, but the demonstration camp and field 
were a quarter of a mile away on the plateau toward Langres. 
When I introduced myself at headquarters the officer in charge 
took the joy out of life by exclaiming : 

"Oh, are you Lieutenant Minturn? Glad to meet you. We 
tried to get you detailed as an instructor to this school, but Ples- 
noy beat us at general headquarters !" — and then the speaker 
introduced me to Lieutenant Rose and excused himself bv say- 
ing his machine was waiting to take him to the railway station 
on his way to the states for discharge. I did not get his name 
but he said he was a portrait painter from New York City. 

Lieutenant Rose was kind enough to put on a demonstration 
for my benefit. As we headed from the fort for the outside camp 
the first exhibition was of an overhead screen by a wood's edge 
with laterals at each end along hedges in opposite directions. 
The afternoon sun cast pronounced shadows to which I called 
attention, but the lieutenant insisted that only noonday air pic- 
tures were of value for observation purposes and then the shad- 
ows were all under the screens. High lights were more sought 
after than shadows and he told the story of a regimental head- 
quarters in a carefully camouflaged position which was exposed 
by the efforts of an orderly to do his duty well. The orderly 
placed a number of brightly scoured wash-pans in a row on a 
bench by headquarters for the convenience of his superior offi- 
cers, and the highlights in a row were so out of the ordinary that 
they attracted the attention of a Bosch airman who flew low to 
investigate, and soon afterward the place was shelled. 

220 



CAMOUFLAGE SCHOOL AT FT. ST. MENGE 

Lieutenant Rose was at the front for several months — until 
September, 1918. when he was brought down here as an instruct- 
or because of his good work in camouflage. In answer to my 
inquiry as to whether the old army officers did not regard cam- 
ouflage lightly and as only applicable to the extraordinary pres- 
ent and transient trench methods, he declared none were of that 
opinion who had ever been at the front or exposed themselves; 
that thousands of our men were needlessly slaughtered by rea- 
son of ignorant neglect and scant use of camouflage and that in no 
other way could men be protected against modern gun fire. He de- 
clared the Germans were exceedingly expert in the use of cam- 
ouflage and prepared it months ahead in the back areas. 

We passed a woods very dense with small timber. In one 
place was an overhead cover of chicken-wire, supported on 
heavier wires strung from supporting trees. I saw much of this 
afterward that had been put up by the Germans around St. 
Mihiel during their four years of occupancy there. The chicken- 
wire was interwoven with jute strips colored green and ends 
[lapping. This one was an artillery emplacement, but I was in- 
formed that guns were not placed in a woods during the last days 
of the war because all woods were shelled and burned by one side 
cr the other, making that too dangerous a location. 

We passed a stone quarry by the side of the road where the 
bluffs were covered with painted canvas much as we had worked 
it out, and in another place with diagonal chicken-wire into which 
jute strips were tied. At the extreme left were several tiers or 
steps of horizontal screens made of chicken-wire in which were 
more jute strips with fluttering ends, while to the right the 
quarry-pit was covered with horizontal wire fabric to which 
coarse cloth patterns like large leaves were rigidly attached and 
colored green and ocher. My companion said the coloring was a 
special French watercolor applied with a spraying pump in some 
instances and in others dashed on with a wide brush ; that the 
Americans found large numbers of such brushes abandoned by 
the Germans and got the idea from them in that way. 

Our walk led us across a drill field, where two enlisted men 
called me by name and ran to greet me in that cordial manner 
that always did my heart good to meet old friends in France. 
They were two candidates at the Officers' Training Camp here 
from the Three Hundred and Ninth Engineers. 

221 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Passing on we came to three artillery guns with overhead 
screens. The guns were sited close to a hedge over which they 
were fired, the bushes being pulled aside by ropes at the moment. 
One overhead screen was typically French, requiring the gun to 
be run out from the cover to be discharged, whereas the Amer- 
ican screen had flaps that were folded to each side away from 
its muzzle at firing, and afterward closed. 

These were the portable camouflage carried by the battery 
from place to place. Very effective screens were improved from 
growing brush, branches and vegitation found when the guns 
were sited. 




CAMOUFLAGED GUNS OP THE 86th FRENCH ARTILLERY 

On the other side of the hedge were examples of camouflaged 
trenches and parapets, particularly designed here to hide pro- 
jectors and other shell-throwing trench pieces. The camouflage 
was of the same wire cloth, supporting painted designs and the 
coverings immediately over the projectors were folded back out 
of the way when those pieces were fired. The German planes 
flew exceedingly low and their aviators were bold in making ob- 
servations. According to Lieutenant Rose, the Bosche always 
1 ad air supremacy It was a trick of the enemy to leave a 
1 souse in an abandoned town in good condition for occupancy by 
our officers as a headquarters ; then blow it to pieces with guns 
previously trained on the building, upon receiving a signal from 
one of their planes. 

Near the trench above mentioned was a shellhole connected 
with a sap entering the hole through an opening closed by a 



BOSCH MACHINE GUN NESTS 

jute-covered frame plastered with mud. Another shellhole on 
the crest of the bluff overlooked an extensive valley and an ob- 
servation station had been excavated just back of it ; the debris 
being scattered like the explosion had left that, that came out of 
the shellhole. The excavation was covered by a camouflage 
roof having a trap door through which reliefs were changed at 
night. The observation opening on the valley side of the shell- 
hole was long and narrow and covered with wire mesh, having 
an irregular top edge made by depending ears of painted tin.' 
The shellholes made by artillery fire were converted into obser- 
vation posts in a single night to avoid detection by the enemy, 
who would otherwise observe what was being done. 

Machine-gun emplacements were dug in the level ground or 
on a small knoll and in one instance the emplacement was in 
front of a hedge back and under which the removed earth was 
hid. As these were common at the front and were quickly made, 
it will be interesting to know that the roof cover was supported 
en radial wooden strips like the stays or ribs of a flattened-out 
umbrella top, with the ends of the strips lying loose upon the 
ground, permitting the cover to be raised on any side for ma- 
chine-gun fire. Over the stays were jute-covered chicken-wire 
and mud so near like the surroundings as to be indistinguish- 
able from the ground around them. I have seen two of these 
working together ; one would open up on our boys who would 
charge it with a 
rush in deployed 

or scattered for- '~^^,h^MiMM<Ly\l^i^^SL 

mation and then ^,-^ ftdTAv^ 2 ».-. j\ V»* 




-X^<4#»§4 & *_*- 



were enfiladed 

by the other J^-^fJ ^__^ 

opening up at v 

one side and 

vomiting leaden American soldiers rushing the bosch ma- 

, .. . . CHINE GUN NEST TO THE LEFT. ARE SURPRISED 

nail into them as by the one to the right, both were hid 
, 11- under the raised covers near the hedge 

the rush line 

passed. It had been effective until the Americans came : the Ger- 
mans said the Yanks didn't have sense enough to be afraid of it. 

In the same hedge in the exhibition put on for me by Lieu- 
tenant Rose, a camouflaged automatic rifle was operated by men 
in camouflage robes consisting of gunny sacks drawn over their 

223 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

bodies and heads loosely, and fringed at the seams. My escape 
from death would have been impossible had they opened up on 
me at such close range with real cartridges instead of blanks. 
The entrances to the machine-gun emplacements above men- 
tioned were back of the hedge and through covered saps. 

We came to a trench in which a machine-gun or mortar em- 
placement was dug in the level in front of the trench and covered 
with raffia wire fixed to fold open for firing. This style of 
hidden gun emplacement in the open was numerously illustrated. 
Men sent ahead to demonstrate them were risinig out of the 
ground unexpectedly at every turn and I do not wonder that 
such traps were used by the Germans with telling effect against 
our soldiers ; but instead of running away our boys rushed them 
with fixed bayonets and yells that brought the quaking enemy 
out of their holes calling "Komrad !" Lieutenant Rose called 
attention to the irregular parapet and paradose of all of the 
trenches as illustrating the best practice. There was a periscope 
in a tree eight feet above the ground and another in a wire en- 
tanglement post so much like one of Sergeant Kleesatell's pic- 
tures that I called the lieutenant's attention to it when I showed 
him a copy of our "Camouflage Notes" a little later. I was also 
informed that the schools here at Fort St. Menge had representa- 
tives at the front line trenches all of the time making examinations 
and sketches, and I made tentative arrangements to go up in a 
few days with their next detail. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

THE OLD FRONT RIGHT AFTER THE ARMISTICE 

My pass to the old front came and, as stated in the last chap- 
ter, I expected to join a party of observers going up from the 
camouflage school at Fort St. Menge, where I arrived from 
Fort Plesnoy by side car after the usual mishaps and delays with 
our army transportation equipment — now in a bad state of repair. 
The French roads were in as bad or worse condition with the 
result that the right fender jolted loose and tangled itself in the 
spokes of a wheel, almost stopping the journey before half way 

224 



ON THE WAY TO THE OLD FRONT 

to the above fort, but we took chances on a weak wheel and went 
on. Arriving at Menge I was informed by Lieutenant Rose, 
whom I found lecturing a class on aerial photography, that the 
camouflage school had been ordered to close ten days sooner 
than the schedule, and that no more details would be sent to the 
front. That disarranged my plans, but I was determined to go 
on anyway, and started back to Langres with the intention of 
picking up any transportation that chanced to be going my way. 
Three miles out of Langres the drive-chain of the side car broke 
and I continued on foot, leaving the driver to get himself and 
broken car back to Plesnoy the best way that he could. Fortu- 
nately, I was soon picked up by a major in an automobile, and 
was saved the breath and strength taxing exercise of climbing 
the high hill on which Langres is situated. 

Upon repeated inquiry at various transportation headquarters 
— my orders did not authorize me to demand transportation — 
I was advised to lay in wait at the gasoline station for possible 
conveyance toward St. Mihiel and the battle front. There I found 
the place closed and the notice, "No Gas," posted, but I interro- 
gated numerous ambulance and truck drivers, who stopped to 
read the sign, and found a truck-load of soldiers after a while 
trying to get on to Chaumont "if they could get enough gas." 
That was partly in my direction, besides being General Pershing's 
headquarters, and I invited myself to a seat alongside the driver, 
asserting my rank to evict a private who was riding there all 
too comfortably. I felt that I was not a welcome passenger but 
you get over any such qualms in the army. Off we went with 
low gas-gauge, in a proverbial French rain, and no top over us. 

Our road to Chaumont followed a ridge overlooking the 
narrow Marne valley. We could see on both sides and also 
follow the windings of the canal and a railroad in their suc- 
cessful efforts to dodge the curves of the river. We could see 
the red roofs of Poulonvy and the ever-dominating Catholic 
cnurch dodging back into a little cove of its own on the far side 
of the Marne, where the railroad twice crosses the canal and 
and river. The canal is easily traced by tall poplars, evenly 
spaced along each bank. We passed through, or in sight of 
numerous farm villages, each house with a door opening into a 
living-room situated between a window on one side and a big 
barn door on the other. The latter has a smaller door for the 

225 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

live stock and geese to pass through, and generally this smaller 
door has a hole at the bottom for the convenience of the chick- 
ens that mostly occupy themselves with scratching in the stable 
cleanings in front of the house. The buildings are all of stone ; 
some of which are architecturally fine in design, and many of 
them have elaborate wrought-iron trimmings. Most of the win- 
dows, opening out on a heap of fertilizer, have neat lace cur- 
tains and healthy house plants displayed, and none of them are 
commonplace. I have yet to see a French building that was not 
more or less artistic. It seems easy to attain here what we so 
often strive after and miss. Perhaps it is because of a lack of 
neatness — of a prevailing moss-covered earthy blend over every- 
thing, that the French buildings harmonize so well with their 
surroundings. We passed through the larger towns of Luzy 
and Verbiese and came suddenly on a gas filling station — one of 
the many that Uncle Sam providentially provides wherever we 
go in France — and had our needs supplied. 

Fortunately I'm a good walker, and when I can't ride farther 
I can walk, which I did a mile out from Chaumont, as was made 
necessary by a broken steering knuckle. The break-down was 
close to Base Hospital 15, located in extensive buildings nor- 
mally used as a French artillery barracks. Here General Per- 
shing visited the patients on Thanksgiving Day. 

I hurried on to the railway station to make inquiry about 
trains, and found one ready to pull out for Toul. My principal 
recollection of Chaumont is of seeing a Frenchman on the viaduct 
near the railway station with a load of poles on a wagon drawn 
by a team of two horses and a camel. The latter had the abused 
countenance of its species but was pulling its share of the load. 
The indications are that I shall see much of Chaumont before I 
leave France and will be able to make amends for undue haste 
now. 

We crossed the Meuse at Neufchateau, only twelve miles 
from the birthplace of the Maid of Orleans, and had to change 
cars there to one crowded with French and American soldiers. 
From Neufchateau our road ran over and tunneled through the 
ridge separating the valley of the Meuse from that of the Mo- 
selle, and we arrived at Toul about 1 1 p. m. While I had a 
first-class ticket I had to ride third-class on account of the crowds 
cf French soldiers, and as no conductors or ticket-gatherers 

226 



A NIGHT AT TOUL 

came to collect fares I abandoned the practice of booking myself 
and deadheaded thereafter. 

Toul, like most of the border cities, is surrounded by a wall 
and moat, and, as is generally the case, the railway station is 
outside. Military police were at the station and principal street 
crossings to direct the traffic. One of my companions on the car 
was a young soldier with a distressing cough, discharged from 
Base Hospital 15 that morning, and now trying to reach his 
company near the front. He had been gassed two months before 
and had been in a hospital since for treatment, and was worried 
over the possibility of being unable to find a comfortable bed. 

Toul was pitch dark ; absence of street and house lights was 
our first reminder that we were now at the front where all lights 
had been prohibited for months, and the recent armistice had 
not yet changed the habit. The feeble light of a lantern marked 
the too infrequent military police posts, from one to the other of 
which we gradually worked our way into the walled city, past 
the marble statue and down a narrow and winding street to 
the left to the headquarters office in a vain quest for a night's 
lodging. "Couchee finir" was the pass-word. We came to a 
handsome, brightly illuminated house which we afterward found 
was next door to the headquarters we were seeking, and turned 
in across an inside court and up a stately stair through an oppo- 
site door to find a colored soldier sorting bottles. He didn't 
know much of anything except that this was not the place we 
were looking for, but we soon found it. A major and two cap- 
tains were standing at attention while the lieutenant in charge 
holding a telephone receiver to his ear with one hand and mak- 
ing clever cartoons on his desk pad of Kaiser William with the 
other, was carrying on a conversation with the commanding 
officer of Base Hospital 45, urging the latter to have a heart 
&nd provide certain waiting officers with beds for the night. 
The party at the other end of the wire was insisting that his 
institution was not a hotel; but after it was explained to him that 
Toul was fuller than usual with transient officers so there was 
no other place for the overflow to go, a reluctant invitation was 
extended, and in another half-hour we had climbed the hill out- 
side the city walls and were stowing" ourselves away for the 
balance of the night in cots in a receiving tent outside of the 
stone hospital buildings. These were the same tents where sus- 

227 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

pects fresh from the trenches were cared for before being 
deloused. I dreamed of cootie parades and guard mounts and 
as I dozed off I could hear the poor gassed patients coughing 
their lives away in the numerous wards of the hospital. Many 
were sad cases because a thoroughly gassed soldier's heart is 
liable to stop on him without notice, so I was better off than 
they. No charge was made here for lodging and breakfast ; in 
fact I found that to be the universal treatment of transient sol- 
diers at all army camps and stations. Base hospital 45 was a 
large one, located in several four-story buildings previously 
u.«ed by the French for artillery barracks, the size and frequency 
of which structures impressed us with the great military prepar- 
edness of our Allies. I made a sketch of the place in the morn- 




THE RIDGE AT DEAUXNOUDS WAS LINED WITH GERMAN DUGOUTS 

ing and waited around until nearly 10 o'clock on the chance of 
getting an ambulance going to St. Mihiel. Fifty nurses left for 
Metz and I could have gone there, but that was not where I 
wanted to go just then. 

As every French village has its Catholic church which tow- 
ers above and dominates all the other architecture, so each French 
city has its cathedral ; gigantic, grim, crasse and gothic ; so stern 
and impressive that God would hesitate to enter, with its clump 
of high-backed chairs lost in the extensive floor space of the 
i-.ave, and a lone woman in black saying her prayers on one of 
them ; with a myriad of alcoves leading off from the aisles on 

228 



FROM TOUL TO LEROUVILLE 

both sides of the church each dedicated to a saint and embel- 
lished with all the bizarre arts and curios that centuries of fanat- 
icism can consecrate, and each with its individual alms box ap- 
pealing' to the regular or casual visitor. I have often noticed 
obscure doors and passages leading off and have explored some 
with about the same feeling and amazing results that attended 
my exploration of Wyandott cave. As places of worship I think 
destruction by German shells would not cause much loss, but as 
unique piles of art they are invaluable because the spirit and 
feeling that created them have died with the centuries in which 
they were built. Toul has one of these cathedrals damaged by 
the war which I visited. 

After exploring the principal ones of the narrow and crooked 
streets of Toul studded at every turn with picturesque gems, I 
found my way to the railway station and the office of the rail- 
way transportation officer, where I learned that I could go by 
train toward St. Mihiel as far as Lerouville. The only train out 
that afternoon was a freight with a few third-class passenger 
cars attached. In the compartment I entered were two gassed 
United States soldiers from Hospital 83, and a casual, a private, 
who had been detained in hospital at Bordeaux, and for a month 
since his discharge from the hospital had been trying to over- 
take his company, but, like Evangeline, always reaching the new 
station a little too late. Our passenger cars were cut off at 
Sorcy so we had to finish the trip in box-cars with a lot of French 
soldiers. The casual above mentioned was sound alsleep and 
would have been left in the passenger-car had we not awakened 
rrlm. He got off at Commercy to interview the military police 
there about the possibility of his company being somewhere in 
that part of France and left his gas mask with a half-loaf of 
French bread tied to it and his pack for us to keep an eye on for 
him. The train pulled out and left him and we had to throw his 
thing's off for him to pick up at his leisure. We dashed through 
the French scenery almost as fast as one could walk, but it was 
not quite so tiresome as walking with a pack, and we were 
housed from the rain. All of this country along the Marne and 
Meuse is broken by ridges similar to those of Brown county, and 
?bout as high, averaging some three hundred feet. Military 
camps and supplies were everywhere in evidence. Freight cars 
and engines were painted in brown, buff and green patches, and 

229 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

trucks and ambulances were similarly treated. At Commercy we 
began to see buildings wrecked by German shells, and at a stop 
just before our passenger-cars were cut off, a train load of Ger- 
man prisoners stood on a track next to us. They immediately 
began clamoring for tobacco and were willing to trade their 
caps, buttons, blouses, anything they had in fact, for a taste of 
the weed. We got several little trinkets and were preparing to 
get more when a French sergeant and a private soldier came 
tearing along and ordered all traffic stopped. They reinforced 
their orders with fixed bayonets — those shivery needle kind of 
theirs — and handled them so recklessly in their excitable way 
that we were afraid they might hurt somebody and gave up the 
idea of acquiring a "Gott mit uns" belt buckle just at that time. 
German prisoners aggravated a Frenchman more then than they 
did later after becoming more common. It had been too much 
the other way. As illustrating this feeling the story was cur- 
rent of a French general who saw a squad of German soldiers 
as he was passing. He got out of his car scowling, gave the order 
like Von Hindenburg, calling them to "Attention !" in German, to 
which they responded like automatons. Then he walked behind 
and gave each prisoner a good swift kick and continued his 
journey a happier man. 

There were perhaps two dozen French soldiers in the box- 
car with us four Americans. They tried to be sociable and one 
little fellow exhibited several photographs, showing himself in a 
group with a woman and child, and as he danced and sang he 
gave us to understand that he was going to "le maison, chez soi" 
— the house of onesself — which is the nearest the Frenchman 
can come to saying home. It made me feel a bit homesick the 
way he kept admiring and exhibiting the pictures. French pop- 
ular airs, by the way, are jokes ; the tunes could easily be played 
on a one-string fiddle. They boast of their superiority, of course, 
but I notice they take kindly to our songs and "Hail! hail! the 
gang's all here," is a favorite. 

The enlisted man carries his travel rations with him. The 
French soldiers ate theirs and it wasn't much. Then the Amer- 
ican boys got out their beans and "bully beef" and generously 
offered me a share. But I had been so fed up on such delicacies 
that I declined with thanks, albeit I had had nothing since break- 
last. I marvel at the appetite of the soldier. He will eat a gen- 

230 



FROM ST. MIHIEL TO DEAUXNOUDS 

erous helping of canned beans, tomatoes and corned beef and 
come back hungry for "seconds" and "thirds" while I simply 
can't go it. 

We arrived at Lerouville just before dark; still raining. The 
military police directed me to the traffic officer three blocks 
down, who would stop a truck going through to St. Mihiel, and I 
secured passage in this way with Wagoner Glenn Hayes, One 
Hundred and Tenth Engineers, Twenty-fifth Division,— an 
Arkansas boy and very accommodating. He invited me to go on 
through St. Mihiel to his camp at Deauxnouds, which I accepted 
on his assurance that there were interesting German military 
works near there. 

It was still light when we passed through St. Mihiel ; the road 
from Lerouville being camouflaged on both sides with a screen 
of reeds and switches, supported by horizontal wires strung on 
posts. The south approach to the river Meuse, on which St. 
Mihiel is situated, is across a level bottom which was thick with 
trenches and wire entanglements. The Germans held the oppo- 
site bank ; a high, steep bluff, where they were so fully fortified 
and entrenched as to successfully resist French frontal attacks 
by fifteen divisions two years ago when thirty thousand French 
soldiers were slaughtered in vain.* The Americans took the 
town about the middle of last September with nine divisions — 
the first American army to fight under American command on 
European soil — by flank movements in the neighborhood of 
Deauxnouds and below St. Mihiel, aided by an artillery fire, 
which reduced several blocks of the city to complete ruin. We 
saw the ruined portions as we rode through the town and ob- 
served, furthermore, that all portions were considerably dam- 
aged. I was now on territory occupied by the Germans until 
recently and which was still in the condition that the ravages of 
war had left it. 

We followed the main road north toward Verdun for about 
three miles, then turned to the northeast through Spada, Lamor- 
ville and Lavigneville to Deauxnouds, some nine miles from St. 
Mihiel. It appears the rule that motormen help others in trou- 
ble. At any rate we were delayed when a mile out by stopping 
to extricate a truck mired to the hubs, which was drawing a 75- 

* American Legion Weekly, issue of September 10, 1920. 
231 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

millimeter French canon, that had been forced off the road by a 
tractor moving a large field gun. It finally required ours and 
another truck to haul the mired one out. This, the driver told 
me, was a frequent occurrence while the war was on and the 
roads were more congested w r ith urgent transportation, all mov- 
ing without lights of any kind. The wagon road where the 
above incident occurred was between a high bluff on the east and 
the Marne canal three or four feet below on the west. Both 
sides were bristling with wire entanglements and chevaux-de- 
frise. Shortly after that we turned to the right and before we 
1 cached Spada we passed a large searchlight which the fleeing 




A LARGE SEARCHLIGHT WHICH THE FLEEING GERMANS LEFT 
IN GOOD CONDITION 

Germans in their haste left in good condition. The country 
here is free from trees and is not so rugged. A hill where the 
searchlight was located commanded the Meuse valley for many 
miles around. 

Spada and all the villages above named are desolate, hope- 
less ruins. No description can be overdrawn because words fail 
to adequately express the reality. The west ridge, forming the 
valley in which Deauxnouds was situated, was lined with Ger- 

232 



ELABORATE GERMAN DUGOUTS 

man dugouts and elaborately finished and furnished houses 
communicating with them. I slept in one of the dugouts that 
Tuesday night on a bed of wrapping paper. The engineers had 
been living in them, and had about finished moving to Lerou- 
ville from where they expected to go to Germany. 

I had beans, cooked from the raw, not the canned variety, 
and potatoes for supper and was hungry enough for seconds. 
I bunked that night with the regimental dental officer and his 
assistant. We were not disturbed except by the rat patrols, 
which put their sentinels out early and changed them often, 
judging by the frequent squals and skurrying noises. The 
engineer company ate before daylight so I missed breakfast with 
the exception of a cup of chocolate made by the dentist. Then 
7 put in the morning inspecting a part of the German works 
which were too extensive to visit in detail. 

The Y. M. C. A. occupied a beautiful stone bungalow back 
of a small terraced yard set out with dwarf evergreens. Back 
doors of this and of all of the houses opened into dugouts ex- 
tending on into the hills. 

I was told of a general's headquarters more elaborate than 
any and set out to find it. Incidentally I ran upon a German 
graveyard with many permanent-looking headstones, and while 
contemplating the cemetery sought cover from the rain and 
opened a small can of sardines. Before I had finished them a 
young soldier came out of an adjoining shed and asked if I 
wanted some hot pancakes. As you may guess, the answer was 
"Yes." So he invited me into his shack ; mussy and all but clean, 
ladeled some batter out of a washpan into a long-handled frying 
pan, flipped it with a jerk when ready to turn, and with ample 
apology served it pipinig hot on a plate he had just eaten from, 
and that probably had never been washed since it left the potter's 
kiln. We had 'Karo and bacon-grease to garnish with, and I 
staid with that soldier until the batter was gone. 

The general's house was hid among the trees high up on the 
ridge, and was camouflaged with raffia-wire stretched horizon- 
tally on heavy wires supported by the trees. Nearby was a 
tower for the leading-in wires of telephone and telegraph instru- 
ments. The house was of stone, plastered in and out, roofed 
with tile, and had a terrace in front large enough to play croquet 
on where were convenient tables and little shelves below for 

233 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

|[ 

stines. Inside were four rooms and a kitchen, all elegantly fur- 
nished ; a Dutch oven, canopy bed, wardrobe and center-table in 
the front room, the floor of which was carpeted with a handsome 
rug; piano, sideboard and complete equipment in the beam-ceil- 
inged and high-wainscoted dining-room, etc. The rooms men- 
tioned had ea*ch a back door leading into a common dugout, the 
main contents of which was a stack of beer bottles — all empty. 
The fact that these places were left in such good condition last 
September shows plainly in what precipitate haste their first 
occupants had to vacate. 

I made a number of sketches here at Deauxnouds and sal- 
vaged three pairs of window curtains and a picture at the gen- 
eral's cottage, which I still have. Then I returned by truck to 
St. Mihiel in what I thought would be ample time to find a place 
to sleep. I saw the Provost Marshal's sign and interviewed him 
only to be shunted off to the town major in a remote quarter. 
There a wild French soldier tried to tell me something in French 
and by gesture, which an American enlisted man who found us 
wrestling together on the sidewalk said was to the effect that I 
v-ould have to go down to army headquarters at the mayor's of- 
fice. I found that to be opposite an open square which I had 
passed before, where an American army band was playing to a 
crowd of soldiers. A captain guided me through considerable 
ruins to a room where the town major was just moving in. 
He had the floors scrubbed and they were not yet dry. He said 
I would have to see the French sergeant at so-and-so, and 
described the place from which I had just come. When I made 
that fact plain to him he volunteered to go with me. Back we 
went to the same sergeant, and together they worked out an ad- 
dress where they assured me I could get a billet for the night. 
I started with my little piece of paper in French, and promptly 
got lost in the crooked streets, and finally offered a countryman 
a franc to lead me to my destination. We arrived at the written 
address, but the woman answering the knock, was inclined to be 
angry at the suggestion. She finally led us up a dark, damp 
stairs into a desolate room where the most I could see was a 
pile of cabbage. She and my guide entered into another word- 
and-sign fest in which it appeared to me he was arguing that my 
ticket entitled me to associate for the night with the cabbage, 
while she was protesting that she was a lone widow. They tried 

234 



BILLETING IMPOSSIBLE AT ST. MIHIEL 

to explain to me in turn, but it was "je ne comprends pas" for 
me. Finally she took me by the hand and led me down into 
the street and we began a zigzag travel in the thoroughfares of 
St. Mihiel, from one American officer and soldier to another, in 
a vain effort to find somebody who understood both languages — 
she leading me and waiving the order for the billet in her free 
hand ; my Frenchman at our heels. I thought we were aiming 
for the Provost Marshal's office, but we caromed and missed it. 
Then I firmly withdrew my hand and supposed I had politely 
dismissed both of them with many "mercis," but not so the 
madame. While I was getting the direction to the railway sta- 
tion from the nearest military police she came back, and thinking 
she had found what she was hunting for, I went with her again. 
We entered another gloomy abode where there was an elderly 
woman. Immediately I asked, "Do you speak English?" and 
she threw up both hands saying: "Je ne parle pas anglais." I 
knew of courses what parle meant and the use of pas right after 
parle meant a negative, and was wondering what I was there for, 
when my first love grabbed my baggage and dashed upstairs, 
beckoning me to follow. We halted in a room where there 
wasn't a chair or a bed — not anything but a small sheet-iron 
stove. There I was, perspiring from over-exertion, and those 
two women making signs to know if I didn't want them to build 
a fire in the stove. 

"No !" I shouted, "I'm not cold — I'm looking for a place in 
which to sleep tonight — I want a bed, not a stove — where's your 
bed— b-e-d— B-E-D ?" 

If I'd known enough to say lit or couchcc perhaps I'd have 
had better luck; but I was becoming exasperated and made up 
my mind to get out of there and out of the town if I had to walk 
all night. 

My haversack was between me and the door. I made a grab 
for it and was down the stairs and out before the women could 
stop me, and walked in the direction of the railway station, which 
is on the opposite side of the river from the main town. I met 
a French soldier on the approach to the old bridge and asked 
him if one could cross there. "Wee" he replied without under- 
standing me, for I found half of the bridge entirely gone and 
could only have crossed there by swimming. This bridge was 
demolished by the Americans at the taking of St. Mihiel last 

235 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

September, and our engineers had built a temporary structure 
a block below which I used. I stopped on the way over to make 
a sketch of the old bridge and shelled neighborhood and for 
greater freedom took off my pack and leaned it against a rail of 
the bridge, — then stepped away to get a better perspective. Upon 
glancing back I saw a bunch of French soldiers making off with 
my pack. 

"Hey! you there! that's mine!" and I dashed after them in a 
fashion that they knew what I meant, whereupon they dropped 
my personal property and trotted off sheepishly. 

The railway station, a large two-story building, had the roof 
and second flour smashed in by shells and littering the waiting- 




THE REGULARLY LAID OUT GRAVES AND SUBSTANTIAL STONES 
THOUSAND GERMAN SOLDIERS AT ST. MIHIEL 



room and lower floor in a mass of rubbish. In a wooden shed 
outside was a French sergeant, who spoke a little English, and 
succeeded in imparting the information that there would be no 
train toward Verdun until some time the next day, and then it 
would not go clear through. Upon learning this, I returned to 
the nearest military police and asked him to stop a motor-con- 
veyance of some kind going north. It was now almost dark and 
many vehicles passed without heeding his signal ; but finally an 
automobile with an empty rear seat was halted and in this con- 

236 



THE GERMAN CEMETERY AT ST. MIHIEL 

veyance I passed for the third time the hill looking down on 
St. Mihiel from the north, on the slope of which is graveyard- 
evidence that the Germans came into this part of France, not 
temporarily as has been declared by them, but to stay. 

They have here buried thousands of their dead with all of 
the care of permanency, and over the prominent ones have built 
elaborate monuments in marble. Reaching from the road on 
which we passed, to a large iron cross on a slab at the top of the 
hill, are the regularly-laid-out graves of six thousand German 
soldiers, each with a mausoleum or a modest stone marked 
with some loving tribute or with praise for the gallantry and 
devotion of the deceased to the fatherland. In one corner of the 
burying-ground is a colossal lion rearing his head some twenty- 
five feet, with his paw raised toward unconquered France in a 
spirit of defiance and intended possession. This cemetery has 
been a challenge to every Frenchman who has seen or heard 
about it — and the story of its insolence was told me long before 
I dreamed that I would see it. 

The sky cleared for a while and a half-moon showed that we 
were passing along a heavily camouflaged road ; but when the 
car turned off considerably south of Verdun, I asked to get out 
of the machine, and continued my way afoot on the main high- 
way. It was lonesome there between the high raffia screens 
and beneath the swiftly moving clouds playing hide-and-seek 
with the moon, surrounding one in this strange death-land with 
dodging shadows to startle even a skeptic on the subject of 
ghosts. But a half-hour later a motor-truck overtook me, and 
climbing in at the canvas-covered rear, I found myself in the 
company of a squad of colored service troops in charge of a 
negro second lieutenant. They were full of jokes and melody 
that drove away all spookiness as we bumped along. 

"Did yo all see 'at Jerry plane To dahk?" one black fellow 
inquired. 

"Yassah, but hits no Jerry — hits a uncle !" 

"How come uncle?' 

"Uncle Sammy — 'at's how come. Didn'yo all see urn red, 
white an' blue spots?" 

"He not yo uncle, no how !" 

"How come not my uncle? I's geneine Merican bahn, isn't 
I?" 

237 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

"Reckon so — but 'at ain't no a'gument. Uncle Sammy white 
man — you jes a black niggah wo'kin' fo' 'im — at how come." 

"Hits de haht — not de skin Uncle Sammy look at. Ala haht 
not black as yo' is !" 

"Don' yo say ma haht black, niggah !" and I feared there was 
going to be more war, but the troubled waters calmed as a yellow 
boy led and all joined in a more fitting finale, the earnestness of 
which bore evidence that these soldiers with black skins, buffeted 
around so far from home, had true American hearts and were 
just as homesick as their white comrades. 

Way down upon the Suwanee river, far, far away, 

There's where my heart is turning ever, 

There's where the old folks stay. 

All up and down the whole creation, sadly I roam, 

Still longing for the old plantation, 

And for the old folks at home. 

All the world am sad and dreary, everywhere I roam, 

Oh, darkies, how my heart grows weary. 

Far from the old folks at home. 

There was no second verse hut a long silence which meant 
that in thought twelve black souls had laughed at distance and 
were spiritually back with "the old folks at home." 

"At old U. S. A. sho some good place to be at !" finally broke 
the spell and everybody agreed : 

"Hit sho am !" 

At the end of a couple of miles they too left the Verdun road, 
and I again dismounted and continued afoot. The sky was 
clouded over now, and I had not gone far when drops of rain 
warned of an approaching shower. Ahead to the left, and below 
the wagon road were lighted buildings, from which a couple of 
soldiers climbed to my level as I came opposite. Upon inquiry 
they said I could probably get a bed for the night at their bar- 
racks ; so I accompanied them higher up the hill along a path 
that was getting wet and correspondingly slippery. At the bar- 
racks no extra blankets were available, but one of the soldiers 
offered to guide me to a supply officer, where I could be sup- 
plied. That was much farther up the hill by a path so slick that 
I could barely stand, because my shoes were not hob-nailed. I 
could imagine myself trying to get back with a load of blankets ; 
but the supply sergeant was good, and gave me a cot in his own 

238 



WHERE ACCOUNTABILITY WAS DROPPED 

shack where I slept with four others. Furthermore, he brought 
me a supper of "gold fish" and "corn Willie" that tasted splen- 
didly, as I had not eaten since my breakfast of hot cakes at 
Deauxnouds. Aside from the fact that half-a-dozen soldiers sat 
on the edges of the cots and played poker and joked until mid- 
night, and a couple of pet cats insisted on sleeping on my face 
the rest of it, I had a good time. 

I learned that I was the guest of a detachment of the Fif- 
teenth Engineers, and that the lighted buildings below the wagon 
road were shops near the station of Ratattoul, where the engines 
and cars of the steam road between St. Mihiel and Verdun were 
being repaired by the above detachment. The place was some 
ten miles south of Verdun near where the Bosch pinchers in 1916 
had tried to pinch off the U-shaped strip that joined Verdun to 
the rest of unconquered France. 

As I was traveling "light" I did not have a change of under- 
wear, and was acommodated by the supply sergeant the next 
morning, who would take no pay because all Clothing at the 
front then was expendable and "dropped" from the records as 
fast as issued. Day revealed the camp well up the side of a 
lidge, with the wagon road, a railroad, and a canal below, in 
the order named. 

The shack that I had slept in was close to the mouth of an 
extensive dug-out built into the hill by the French army which 
had occupied all of this territory and held back the German 
hordes for nearly four- years before we arrived. Up to the 
signing of the armistice this dug-out was a haven of refuge 
against shells for all who were close enough to get into it when- 
ever the frequent bombardments started. 

Several machines passed me as I walked toward Verdun 
from Rattattoul, and would not stop, but I was picked up after 
an hour by a truck load of soldiers who were transferring to 
another station, and who took me nearly to the gates of the war- 
famed city. Our route followed the canal nearly all the way. 
Many boats, all more or less submerged, were in evidence. The 
Germans in control of both ends had let the water out of the 
canal during the war, causing the boats collected in this French- 
held strip, to become dry and almost ruined. To the left, or 
west of the canal as I traveled, the country was flat and gen- 
erally marshy, and bounded in the distance by a fringe of hills 

239 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

from beyond which the Germans were wont to fire their heavy 
artillery against the low ridges at my right, which were honey- 
combed with dug-outs and traced by a connecting web of 
trenches. Wire entanglements were everywhere, and the mouths 
of dug-outs which were as fantastically scrapped out of corru- 
gated scrap-iron, sod, and stone, as the shacks of a negro set- 
tlement, and camouflaged against aerial observation, generally 
by the use of chicken-wire interlaced with raffia and burlap 
strips. These muddy, inconvenient places were the homes of 
the French soldiers since 1914, and many of them lining the 
highways had facetious signs like "Golden Hour Club," "Sunny 
Side," "Paradise," "Cooties Parade," and the like as near as I 
could translate. Tall poplar trees lined the canal banks, and 
were the supporting posts for a camouflage screen of wire and 
reeds from the adjacent swamps ; and at frequent intervals there 
were screened emplacements where the Allied artillery had 
answered the Bosch. We passed a train of cars all camouflaged 
in the irregular patches of brown, yellow, and green which met 
our approval because exactly as we had practiced the art at 
Camp Taylor, except that the black lines separating the patches 
were larger than our regulation half-inch, and a great deal more 
black was used — often in large patches of that color. The en- 
gines were also similarly treated, and nearly every truck and 
ambulance had the same crazy-patches of color. I repeatedly 
asked what this was for — remarking that the strange patterns 
made the objects more conspicuous instead of hiding them, and 
was told the purpose was not to render the objects invisible but 
to prevent the enemy from making direct hits, because it was 
extremely difficult for a gunner to gauge the distance and hit a 
camouflaged object. We passed a stone bridge with the same 
fanciful decorations and nearly all of the shacks at the dug-outs 
were smeared with paint in the crudest of patterns. At one 
place we passed a scaffold-bridge such as the engineers hastily 
construct, extending for miles across the swampy bottoms. 



240 



APPROACHING VERDUN 



CHAPTER XXVII 

VERDUN THE HEROIC CITY 

It was with a feeling of veneration and awe that I approached 
Verdun. In my imagination I saw the heroic French soldiers of 
1916, saying "They shall not pass," as they obeyed the command 
of General Petain to hold the Hun. Captain Henri, who was in 
the fight, told us at Camp Taylor how his machine-gun detach- 
ment held a shell-hole for forty-eight hours, and only he and 
another were left alive. These men were fighting for France, 
but they were also fighting a foe who would have been at our 
throats before we were ready, had he not been held at bay by 
our brave Allies. All of this ground I was traversing around 
Verdun was sacred ; more so by the glorious part that the Amer- 
icans were permitted to take in the final drive against the bar- 
barians in 1918. Verdun lies in the path that invading armies of 
all ages have taken. The physical conditions make it the logical 
way through, and no very vivid imagination is needed to picture 
the hosts, from the stone age to the time of Mr. Hohenzollern, 
who fought and died here within the circle of my horizon. 

Verdun, like Langres and most of the larger cities next to the 
German frontier, is a walled and strongly fortified town. In 
addition to the citadel or fortress within its walls, it is defended 
by a ring of nearly a dozen forts, from three to ten miles out- 
side — depending upon the terrain. These forts are in turn 
ringed around by smaller fortifications, manned by a battalion 
or more of troops. 

The river Meuse flows north nearly through the middle of 
the city, and at the center of the latter a side channel rejoins 
the main river. The ground to the east slopes gradually to the 
stream, but to the west and north of the junction of the two 
channels the terrain rises to a low hill half-way up which is the 
market-house, as high and larger than the shed at the Indian- 
apolis terminal station ; and above that is the cathedral, the two 

241 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

square towers of which have made good targets for Jerry's guns, 
but are still practically intact, although the main structure of 
the church is badly damaged. The town clock in the cathedral 
tower was keeping time and the chimes rang out the quarter- 
hours and the hours during the while I was in the neighbor- 
hood. 

On the spur of the hill is the wonderful citadel, or fort ; 
three stories high, the top story being on the ground level, and 
the other two below that, making an underground city, where 
the people got their supplies during the siege, and the mysteries 
of which are guarded carefully by the French, even against the 
curiosity of their American "brothers." By the side of the cathe- 
dral, which is a quarter of a mile from the citadel, is a vast 
shell-hole that opens into an underground road large enough to 
permit a big covered truck to be driven through without near 
touching the roof, and which is said to start from the fort and 
lead to an exit beyond the walls of the city. The existence of 
this underground way was not even suspected by our army until 
it was exposed by an accidental German shell ; but it yawns big 
now at the bottom of a slide of debris down which one is apt to 
slip if he is not careful. 

Verdun is protected by massive double walls that are sep- 
arated by a wide and deep moat. Outside of the outer wall is 
another moat and both of these were lined with wire entangle- 
ments that blanketed much of the land around the outside of the 
town and extended thence, according to the mysteries of military 
engineering, over the valley of the Meuse, up the ridges on each 
side of tbe valley and along these ridges and their ramifications 
to the edges of that vast No-Man's-Land, where the Bosch was 
taught to keep his distance. 

I approached the city from the south, or side opposite the 
citadel, entering through port St. Victor. My first act was to 
sketch the outer gate. Passing the inner gate a stuttering Amer- 
ican sentinel found as much difficulty in making himself under- 
stood as he would had he been a Frenchman trying to talk to 
me ; but the substance of his reply to my inquiry for the Head- 
quarters of the Military Police was that I should keep on down 
the main street, and as that appeared to be the only way open I 
continued. The houses were deserted. The only life was an 
occasional French or American soldier; and while nearly every 

242 



AT BEAUREPAIRE BRIDGE 

building had a shell-hole in wall or roof their repair seemed to be 
within the reasonable bounds of possibility. Many of the build- 
ings were barricaded with stone paving blocks, and everywhere 
that a street could be enfiladed a small fortress of paving-blacks 
had been erected. 

It commenced to rain — my, how easily the weather man does 
that here — so I stepped under cover and incidentally made 
another sketch showing the church near St. Victor's gate — maybe 
it was his church — that, I do not know ; but I do know it was 
badly shot full of holes. I included the street to the first crook 
which was not far, and in the distance over the housetops the 
two towers of the cathedral. The street led me to Beaurepaire 
bridge, where I made sketches from both ends. For one sketch 
1 took cover from the rain under a porch of a ruined building 
bearing a large sign of the Singer Sewing Machine. Here the 
store-room in front was filled waist high with paving stones 
and on the wall back of this breastwork was a military telephone. 
On the tiled floor were the chared remains of a camp fire and 
empty bean and beef cans. Nobody came to question my 
intrusion. 

Diagonally across the bridge were the ruins of what appar- 
ently had been the public library, but now roofless and gutted. 
The entrance was through a small fort of paving-blocks built 
across the sidewalk. I wound through its turns to take cover 
from the moisture, but found the buildings open to the sky. 

From the library north, the damage to buildings rapidly 
increased. In many cases whole fronts were knocked down; a 
little farther and only the fragments of walls at corners or chim- 
neys, where the bracing was stronger, remained like tottering 
obelisks, and beyond appeared larger areas which had been closely 
built city blocks ; now leveled to the very foundations. Irreg- 
ular heaps of stone, brick, and mortar, pulverized by high ex- 
plosives, were often overgrown with grass and weeds that told 
how the damage had largely begun back in the seige of 1916. 
With only the streets cleared for passage these piles marked the 
sites of once beautiful homes, now uninhabited save in some 
instances by French soldiers, who had burrowed into the cel- 
lars to make dug-outs under the rubbish for refuge against 
German shells, which were fired regularly into Verdun every 

243 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 




PART OF SHELL-RUINED VERDUN. NOTE THE 

SOLDIER PEEPING OUT OP THE DUG-OUT IN THE 

MIDDLE FOREGROUND 



day for four years. I did not see a civilian while I was there. 
They had become refugees months before, and had not ventured 

back to the damp, 
bone-aching des- 
olation that was 
awaiting them. I 
was two nights 
and part of three 
days in Verdun, 
and returned on 
the last day to 
make a sketch of 
the worst dam- 
aged portion of 
the city. Climbing over the pulverized remnants of a once 
elegant residence at the corner of Rue St. Pierre and Da La 
Belle Virge to get a better view, I noticed the nearby openings 
to two dug-outs, from the closer of which the gaunt, unkempt 
head of a little French soldier furtively appeared and cuatiously 
examined the intrusion, ready to dodge back like a rat in its hole 
at any overt act. I thought of the lines and how he fitted them 
so completely : 

"You're a funny fellow, poilu, in your dusky little cap, 

And your war-worn, faded uniform of blue, 

With your multitude of haversacks abulge from heel to flap, 

And your rifle that is most as big as you. 

You were made for love and laughter, for good wine and merry 

song, 
Now your sunlit world has sadly gone astray, 
And the road today you travel stretches rough, and red, and long. 
Yet you make it, petit soldat, brave and gay. 
Though you live within the shadow, fagged and hungry half the 

while, 
And your days and nights are racking in the line, 
There is nothing under heaven that can take away your smile, 
Oh, so wistful and so patient and so fine." 

Nice sentiment that! "Bonjour monsieur," I greeted him in 
my best French, and was taken by surprise with his "Good morn- 
ing, Sir," in very good English. This, however, is no uncommon 
experience. 

"Oh," I exclaimed in delight at the prospect, "so you speak 
English." 

244 



AT THE MARKET PLACE, VERDUN 

"No, monsieur, only American." 

'•And did you learn American in the states?" was the next 
question. 

"No, monsieur, in ze army of France wiz ze soldat of ze great 
President Wielson." 

"How do you like Americans?" 

"Oh. ze grand brave Jean de Arc Americans! Zay do so 
much for France! When ze poilu (the French like 'poilu' 
meaning hairy, strong,) so discourage and fatigue wiz ze long 
fight zen ze Americans come quick and brave and chase ze— 
w hat you call— damn Bosh like hell— so he say 'Kamerad' to ze 
world. France ees mos gratified to ze Americans who have done 
so much for she." 

Then he approached, twiddling a cigar-lighter between his 
fingers that he handed for inspection, exclaiming, "Souvenir!" 
said he made it himself out of two of Jerry's "Gott Mit Uns" 
belt-buckles and would part with it to his beloved American 
brother for thirty francs. 

Thus was my idol shattered: my sympathy gone to waste. 
That little frog was trying to bunco me into buying a bogus 
souvenir at an exorbitant price; for I saw dozens just like his 
cigar-lighter for sale by street-fakers in Paris for one-third his 
figure soon after. In fact the French factories are said to be 
running night shifts now on German war souvenirs for the 
American trade. 

Ascending the hill from Beaurepaire bridge on my first morn- 
ing there, I passed the market-house, so like a huge hangar for 
dirigibles, with shell holes in roof and sides large enough for 
the passage of fair sized Zeppelins, and noted the crowding 
American trucks and soldiers in it without understanding that 
it had been appropriated as a parking place and stable for our 
transportation and as convenient messing places where a half- 
dozen company kitchens were set up and were serving food 
twice daily (at 7 a. m. and 4 p. m. only) to long lines of soldiers 
bringing in their own mess kits. Nor did I then know that there 
was where my own subsistance in Verdun would be similarly 
ladled out to me. I climbed the steep slope to the citadel and 
finally halted under a roofed portion of the theological seminary 
to sketch the nearby cathedral. Most of the several large three- 
story seminary buildings were only broken walls, with rain- 

245 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

clouds for covering, and their surfaces mottled like crazy quilts 
with patches of interior decorations as varied as the rooms were 
numerous which the walls had once helped to enclose. While I 
was there a detail of soldiers came with buckets and brooms and 
cleaned out the roofed portion where I stood, preparatory to 
spreading their blankets there for the night. This reminded me 
that I had no blankets nor even a shelter engaged. 

The doors of the cathedral were locked, but, hearing voices 
within, I began circuiting the immense structure to find an en- 
trance. The way around led to a dilapidated cloister, the vine- 
covered porticos of which were balancing in many places ready 
to topple over. Once it had enclosed a well-kept garden, with 
trees for shade and plants around a middle fountain, but long 
months of neglect and the vandalism of friend and foe left 
only a sorry reminder. 

Diagonally of this garden was a passage as dark and drippy 
as the old Illinois street tunnel at Indianapolis, and I would have 
turned away had I not seen a Y. M. C. A. woman coming out. 
To a question she replied that the passage led to a cross-street ; 
but a first turn to the left, then up two flights of steps and 
through an L-shaped room where carpenters were at work, 
would lead to a corridor which opened into the church. As a 
result of her directions I wandered through more subterranean 
passages, into more blind alleys, more barren and comfortless 
bedchambers, and through other rooms and windings — part of 
the great cathedral, then any modern master of mazes could con- 
jure up. I met one or two stray souls meandering like myself 
in the darkness, but finally came to a door-way into one of the 
main aisles. It was barricaded so I had to get down on all fours 
and crawl through. The obvious purpose was to keep inquisitive 
and curious people like myself out. The shot-riddled roof tim- 
bers had fallen or were threatening to come down in places. The 
plastering was hanging ready to fall in patches, and the tiled 
floor of the utterly denuded interior of the church was littered 
with rubbish that had dropped. The usual booths in the side 
aisles dedicated to the saints, the organ, the pulpits, in fact every- 
thing but the altar had been removed. The latter stood dam- 
aged and bare on a raised platform of marble under a golden 
canopy, supported at the top of the nave by four darkly mottled, 
tall, spiral columns like those at the tomb of Napoleon. While 

246 



THE Y. M. C. A. AT THE FRONT 




RUINED INTERIOR OF VERDUN CATHEDRAL. 
[S JOAN OF ARC BURIED UNDER THAT ALTAR?" 



I was trving to sketch this, and the shell-riddled interior, a 
French soldier cautioned me to move, pointing up to the roof 
over me where a section several yards square was just ready to 
drop, and as I was well on with the drawing from a safer position 
an American soldier sidled up hesitatingly to ask : 

"Excuse me, sir, but is it true that the body of Joan of Arc 
lies buried under that altar?" 

Joan and France are synonomous terms with our boys who 
have sung so 
much about her 
that they expect 
to find her 
charred remains 
or other relics of 
her sacred exis- 
tence at every 
billeting place in 
France. 

Down hill from 
the cathedral in a 
narrow winding street, was the army Y. M. C. A., where I called 
and learned of an Officers' Glub to which I was directed for pos- 
sible sleeping accommodations, there being no hotels or habitable 
houses. The inadequate rooms jambed to suffocation with sol- 
diers were presided over by two American women : one handing 
out free writing material and hot chocolate and the other selling 
candies, cakes and tobacco at low quartermaster prices. The sol- 
dier has a craving for candy and smokes. 

Much criticism has been directed against the army 
Y. M. C. A., but my vote is all in its favor. I have seen it op- 
erate all the way from Camp Taylor, Kentucky, to the front line 
trenches of France. It has been wherever the army was— the 
one bright spot— the brightest always anywhere in the vicinity, 
providing a place where the soldier could go for healthy relax- 
ation, and was welcome. The men in charge have been courte- 
ously human as distinguished from those sanctimonious saints 
who are shocked at soldier cuss- words— for our boys use the 
English as vigorously as they fight, and vice-versa— and the 
Y. M. C. A. women with their cheerful and helpful— often 
needle-and-thread, and button-sewing, helpful ways— have re- 

247 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

minded many a rough doughboy of mother or sister back home. 

The ladies, "God bless 'em," are in the war wearing other 
insignia than the Y. M. C. A. triangle. There are the hello 
girls with the two flags of the signal corps; nurses with the 
sign of the Red Cross ; entertainers with no outward designa- 
tion more than a music roll or an instrument box, and here I 
glimpsed a rarer specimen — the female war-correspondent, whom 
I was permitted to make a closer study of at the Officers' Club 
that night. She was Mrs. Wilson, of the Baltimore Daily Sun. 
She was a small nubbin when shucked, but as I first saw her in 
her fur coat and arctics she looked formidable enough, and her 
feet were monsters. 

The Officers' Club at Verdun owed its existence to the enter- 
prise of one of the companies from Maryland, stationed there 
since the armistice, and to the foraging ability of the sergeant 
non com. to whom the details were entrusted. 

The room was among the very few with a whole roof over 
it, at the end of a long, narrow passagt in from the narrow and 
crooked street which I had passed along, near B-bridge. Its 
two wide windows with lace curtains salvaged from some Ger- 
man headquarters where a piano was also obtained, overlooked 
a small garden on the bank of the Meuse. 

The room was of good size and wainscoted in panels to the 
ceiling so that with hardwood floors and an elaborate marble fire- 
place with beveled mirror above, it was not hard to furnish. 

A couple of park benches from the garden and a short sofa 
with arms helped out the seating accommodations by day and 
served as beds for those guests at night who did not prefer to 
sleep on the floor. Several rough tables had covers that had 
been issued as O. D. blankets by the quartermaster and were 
still used for their original purpose by the guests aforesaid. A 
notice stated that vin blanc, vin rouge and cognac were to be 
had at prevailing prices. Chairs in the rough, several decks of 
cards, and such reading material as the officers of the club 
brought there and left, about completed the inventory. But it 
was a jovial meeting place for its regular supporters, and a 
God-send to many transient officers like rhyself. I found it in 
time to be directed to the town-hydrant to wash my face and 
hands, and then to the company messes in the market-house for 
my supper, and made reservations for one of the park benches 

248 



MRS. WILSON, BALTIMORE WAR CORRESPONDENT 



as a bed for the night. Later a party, comprising a major, a 
captain, and three lieutenants, arrived and as none of us could 
retire until the membership dispersed about midnight I came 
near losing my reservation through usurpation by the major 
and his party. 

The regimental band was billed for a concert at the club, and 
as the regiment was largely comprised of Maryland officers and 
soldiers, Mrs. Wilson, the war correspondent from Baltimore, 
was anxious to meet them, and they to meet her ; so a committee 
with flash-lights to illuminate the way — there being no street 
lights — waited on the lady at 7:30 and conducted her to the 
club. After all of her coverings were removed she appeared 
rather diminutive, with normal feet, but full of gaiety, and always 
alive to any item of news which she immediately jotted in her 
note-book with the remark that her memory was treacherous. 

Yes, she would join them in a glass of wine and a cigarette ; 
and she swapped war stories with the oldest veterans, for she 
had arrived a year 
before America 
declared war and 
had been where- 
ever the excite- 
ment was greatest. 
Never knew what 
was going to hap- 
pen next, but at 
the end of every 
day, so far, she 
found it so near 
perfect that a good French dinner and bed were always waiting 
for her. It may at first seem strange that it is not the American 
women over here, who are homesick — they are in no hurry to get 
back — but it is our soldier-boys who can hardly wait for the day 
to come when they can leave France forever. The women are 
receiving so much attention wherever they go that they are hav- 
ing the times of their lives. 

One of the stories told here that made an impression on me, 
was by an officer who said he had stooped to pick up an excep- 
tionally well camouflaged Bosch helmet, but found it contained 

249 




MRS. WILSON AT THE OFFICERS' CLUB IN 
VERDUN, 1918 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

the gruesome head of its owner which had been neatly decapi- 
tated, but was held by the chin-strap from coming out. 

Next morning the major and his party were worrying about 
how they could get out to the old German front lines. They 
were unable to find transportation. I suggested my plan — to 
start hiking in the desired direction, and ask for a ride from 
any conveyance that overtook me ; but that seemed too hazardous 
for them. 

I was not particularly anxious to ride for a while any way, 
as one can study the country better afoot ; so I set out to the 
northeast through Belleville, and along the ridge where Fort 
Belleville, Ft. Michael, Ft. Javannes, Ft. Souville, Ft. Vaux, and 
Ft. Dovanmont, every mile or so a fort — so desperately and suc- 
cessfully disputed the progress of the Hun in 1916. The low 
hills are all waste now, with very few trees, and are so planted 
with high explosives that many years will probably elapse before 
the plowman will venture to disturb the soil. The numerous 
villages named on the maps are in many instances located with 
more certainty there than they can be on the actual ground. All 
of them are ruined beyond any hope of repair, and not even 
traces are left of some. I had to be told more than once or 
should not have known that I was then on a town-site, so thor- 
oughly churned up were the debris and ground. The town of 
Yaux is one of these, and here, and everywhere that the oppos- 
ing armies faced each* other for a considerable period, the de- 
struction is intense and complete, or at least nothing is standing 
erect more than a few feet above the ground. 

A published statement shows that in the Meuse fifty-nine 
towns were damaged with about 1,800 buildings completely de- 
stroyed and nearly 700 partially. In the Marne, 258 towns 
were damaged, including 3,500 buildings entirely destroyed, and 
nearly 12,000 partially. In the Vosges fifty-three towns were 
damaged, with a total loss of 1,256 buildings completely destroyed 
and nearly 200 partially. This makes a belt of about 150 miles 
long, where the destroyed area is anywhere from five to ten 
miles wide. 

In France, as the farm houses are not isolated as with us, 
but are collected in villages and towns, the latter are conse- 
quently but a mile or two apart and very numerous. The dev- 
astated French area is estimated at about six hundred square 

250 



THE GREAT BATTLE OF VERDUN 

miles, or about two per cent, of France, with a total population 
in this area of nearly two million people. When we grumble at 
our high war taxes we should try to visualize the condition of 
these people who took the blow that was just as certainly aimed 
at us. It is only by traveling day after day through village after 
village in utter ruins, that one can begin to comprehend what 
the stupendous destruction of this war was. I have tried to give 
you some idea, but realize that my powers are all too weak for 
much success. 

In working back to the main wagon road up the Meuse val- 
ley toward Stenay, which I had departed from I passed the 
shell-torn road to Deaths Valley, which you have read about, 
where the line of communication for supplies to the front was 
under direct German fire. But there was no other way, and day 
after day, the drivers bravely took the chance, and just as cer- 
tainlv each day some of them were killed. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

FROM VERDUN TO DAMVILLIERS 

I got my last glimpse of Verdun for that morning before 
climbing the spur toward Consenvoye, which town until the mid- 
dle of September, 1918, was in territory occupied by the Huns. 
From the ridge road Verdun appeared to be on quite low ground, 
but was easily located by St. Victor's Gate Church at one end, 
and the cathedral at the other, and from there the river Meuse, 
paralleled by the canal, reached toward us like crooked threads 
which wound into our imagination and tied us there while in 
memory we reviewed the first great battle. 

"We are going to take Verdun, the greatest fortress of 
France. Then it will be peace. There is going to be a struggle 
the like of which the world has never seen," wrote a German 
infantryman, whose letter was found on his dead body. The 
great offensive against Verdun began on the morning of Feb- 
ruary 21, 1 916. The battle was decisive, but peace did not 
come until the Americans fought the second battle of Verdun. 
The first battle decided the issue. This region was selected by 

251 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

the Germans for purely tactical reasons ; by military despotism 
for its contest with Democracy, and if France had lost here she 
would have lest the war, and we Americans instead of helping 
today [this v\as written in France on February 24, 1919], to 
celebrate the third anniversary as an A. E. F., would have been 
fighting for our own country's salvation, perhaps, on our own 
soil. 

"There is a destiny which shapes our lives" and also of na- 
tions. Can anybody doubt it who stops to think how the seeds 
of Democracy . after germinating and smothering for centuries 
in the Old World, were transplanted to a new one with a more 
fertile and we.dless soil, and grew strong and fruitful enough to 
rescue all the world at the critical moment? It was glorious for 
America to come in as she did and save the day. It began to 
dawn at Ballou Woods and Chauteau-Thierry ; it carried on 
through the Argonne Forest and at St. Mihiel, where the Yanks 
smashed the Germans; but the last act was appropriately here at 
the second battle of Verdun. I bewailed the fate that held me 
tor months at Camp Taylor and "crabbed" when our first move 
took us no further than Camp Sherman, Ohio. I was enter- 
tained if not satisfied when my regiment finally sailed, and wan- 
dered for many days over the British Isles and through France; 
but even to be here now is a matter to be thankful for. 

Before reaching Consenvoye I was picked up by an ambulance 
returning from Verdun to its station near Damvilliers. The 
roads along which we passed were camouflaged bv transverse 
drops to obstruct the view from elevated stations straight ahead, 
and by parallel side-scresns against lateral observation, and at 
several dumps or filling stations, where vehicles were wont to 
be loaded and unloaded, large areas were screened horizontally 
with chicken-wire and raffia or canvas, to prevent observa- 
tion- from above by airmen. All around us was No-Man's-Land, 
with its trenches, dug-outs, and desolation only broken in its 
monotony by occasional squads of colored service troops en- 
gaged in repairing the roads and removing the camouflage 
screens. 

We turned off to the right at Consenvoye and began to climb 
a long and much rougher and steeper road, which brought us to 
the top of the ridge. There we passed to the opposite slope 
through the Consenvoye woods, beyond which the road ran 

252 



ETRAYES AND DAMVILLIERS 

nearly straight for a considerable distance between the forest 
on the left and a cleared and rolling country to the right. For 
some distance I had passed occasional objects that looked famil- 
iar, and as soon as we reached the road by the edge of the woods 
I knew for a certainty that I had traveled that way, in a reverse 
direction, a month before, and had seen it lined then with un- 
buried German dead. I had come out that way on my return to 
Langres, through the valley from Etrayes and Damvilliers. 

The narrow valley which we soon turned into was unmis- 
takable with its narrow-gauge tram-road below and innumerable 
Bosch huts lining the steep slopes on either side. Vast quanti- 
ties of German artillery shells and other ammunition were 
stacked at frequent intervals in the open along the railroad, 
which the original owners had to abandon in their haste. This 
road which ran through to Metz was the main artery of supply 




DINNKR WAS NEARLY RKADY 



for the Army of Invasion in the Verdun sector. Numerous 
signs in German still stood where their writers had planted them 
to direct the way to the large number of depots and headquarters. 
The valley, beginning to widen at Etrayes, spread out into 
the great plain of the Woevre in which, a mile or two out, Dam- 
villiers was located. The quarters of the sanitary train of the 
One Hundred and Fifty-eighth regiment where my conveyance 

253 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

belonged, was between Etrayes and Damvilliers. The sanitary 
train was occupying dilapidated surface structures captured 
from the enemy. As dinner was nearly ready, and rain was 
again falling, it did not take much urging to get me to stop. We 
were huddled around a field-range, under a dripping roof., when 
a non-commissioned officer announced that the colonel was mak- 
ing inspections that morning and they had all better jump into it 
and police up. 

There was immediate activity, which I am frank to say, was 
needed — in fact cleanliness and order were here also conspicu- 
ously absent. 

I was invited to wait in a portion of the building that was 
partitioned off for sleeping quarters. There was barely room 
for an improvised table between two bunks which served as 
seats, and the remainder of the room was crowded with bunks of 
the double-deck variety. I suggested that they had no room for 
guests. 

"Oh, we always manage somehow," was the reply. "Last 
night a Belgian refugee and his wife and three children stayed 
with us, and we have lots of company. We make it a rule to 
never turn anybody away in a God-forsaken country like this." 

And such is the spirit of the enlisted men in France. I 
learned that those boys took up a collection for the Belgians 
before allowing them to depart. I would rather take a chance 
on courteous treatment at the hands of the common soldier than 
trom his officers. I have always found him willing to share 
the best he had and to go out of his way to do a favor. He may 
seem "hard-boiled" at times, but under his O. D. shirt there 
beats a warm and true heart that the French girls are keen to 
capture, and if the American army does not demobilize with 
large French reinforcements in petticoats it will only be because 
"Barcus" is not "willing." 

I sat and talked with these men about their part in the last 
drive over hills and levels, woods and fields right at hand. 
Down the very road we had come over they had carried head- 
. less and otherwise mutilated bodies of their fellowmen, who had 
met with violent deaths. They had gathered them in heaps and 
buried them in rows — often in trenches already dug — in the 
extemporized grave-yards which we frequently noted, marked by 
long rows of wooden crosses. On many of them one of the lit— 

254 



VALOR OF THE SEVENTY-NINTH DIVISION 

tie tags that soldiers are required to wear, was tacked for 
identification. 

I was told with what difficulty they had searched out the 
dead Huns in the thick woods, in their concealed machine-gun 
nests where they had been bombed, shot and bayoneted. Of 
how expert the doughboys were with such things, particularly 
those of their own division and train. How skillfully they 
stalked the enemy machine-gun nests and sniping posts, or car- 
ried those places by impetuous assault, garnished with invectives 
calling down the wrath of Heaven. Some might have mistaken 
the war-cries for profanity, but their authors meant every word 
of it; for these veterans of Ballou Woods, St. Mihiel. and the 
Argonne had seen their comrades shot down under signals of 
surrender, and otherwise treacherously slaughtered, and were 
properly vindictive and vengeful. 

One lad told me how he had stooped to pick up an excep- 
tionally camouflaged Bosch helmet and found it had the severed 
head of its owner in it, retained by the chin-strap. I was sorry 
when he told me that, because it would have shown better taste 
not to have mentioned it. 

I copy the following note, made in my diary at the time, from 
information given me by the men of the sanitary train. 

"Hill 378, near Damvilliers, high, bald ridge, dominating the 
plains to the west and north, east of the Meuse, held by Germans. 
Attacked twice by the One hundred and Fifty-eighth brigade 
under Brigadier-General Johnson, assisted by the One Hun- 
dred and Fifty-seventh brigade, took hill and villages of Etrays, 
Reveille, and Wavrille ; Nicholson, commanding One Hundred 
and Fifty-seventh brigade, Seventy-ninth division, Hills 328-319 
all or in part, in possession of Seventy-ninth division, after stub- 
born fighting, stopping only at 11 a. m. November 11, 1918." 

After dinner I continued on foot toward Damvilliers. Near 
the wagon-road were hundreds of surface structures, some of 
wood, others of corrugated metal, arched like the bowed top of 
a moving-wagon, often sodded over and always camouflaged. 
Half way up the ridges above mentioned were concrete dug-outs, 
generally with a pile of ragged clothes at their entrance ; stacks 
of Bosch hand-grenades with handles resembling a potato masher 
by which name our soldiers knew them, broken rifles and gashed 
helmets that four weeks of exposure to hourly rains had ren- 

255 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

dered unattractive as souvenirs to the Americans who had plenty 
of better ones to select from. 

The houses on the one principal and very crooked street of 
Pamvilliers were hid from my view by the gradual slope of a 
small rise, above which the tower of the town church was visible. 
The little tram-road curved under the slope to my left, while the 
wagon-road went a bit in the opposite direction and to save 
walking I steered a middle course toward the church over what 
aopeared smooth grass land. I was surprised to find, on reach- 
ing the low crest, that it was an elaborate Bosche stronghold, with 
C( n crcte machine-gun emplacements connected by winding 
trenches. Camouflage here on the ground level, took the form 
of horizontal chicken-wire, through the meshes of which long 
1 urlap strips about two inches wide, and separated from each 
n' her the same distance, were crossed in two directions. 

1 hese were wicked hornets nests for our boys to stumble 
upon. I nearly fell in one before I saw it, and to think of ma- 
chine-gun fire on top of such a surprise! Then these were not 
the only ones. There were dozens more perhaps that I did not 
find, and I found others. One was two or three hundred yards 
closer to the church, by the edge of a sunken garden where 
|( rrv evidently raised his onions and cabbage and fanned himself 
in ;he shade of its fruit trees during the weary summer months 
v lii'e he waited for "Deutschland uber alles" to materialize. 

1 was told that the Crown Prince and his father watched the 
progress of the battle of Verdun, February, 1916, from the tower 
of this church at Damvillers. We were told the same story 
a! out a house at Montfaucon, but wherever it was what he saw 
n ust not have looked good to the 'Kaiser, who had promised to 
a e the son a field-marshal in captured Verdun, for he went 
I to Germany without performing the promised ceremony. 

I went on through Juvigny toward Stenay, and made several 
sketches. Only a few miles beyond Stenay is Sedan, from which 
the Americans held back on purpose to give the French army 
tl e satisfaction of taking it, for it was at the battle of Sedan 
that France lost to Germany in 1870. 

As near as I could determine it was between Damvilliers and 
Juvigny that I saw the fight, November 10, 1918, as described 
in my Thanksgiving Day letter to my wife, and I need not elab- 
orate on what I said there. 

256 



COLONEL ROSENTHAL'S EXPERIENCES 

On my return a Colonel Rosenthal, of the medical corps, in 
his high power machine, overtook me and inviting me to ride with 
him brought me back to the gates of Verdun. He was on duty 
with the Seventy-ninth division during the last fighting, and he 




WAITING 



related many incidents that occurred in the territory through 
which we were then traveling. He pointed out a spot where he 
found five German bodies in a single heap, and near Verdun 
where one shell killed nine men and thirty-two horses. At bri- 
gade headquarters, still in a camouflaged semi-dug-out where 
we stopped while he made his report for the day, he and another 
officer were watching an approaching shell just before the 
armistice that wobbled and made a peculiar screeching noise as 
it passed over quite near them. 

"That shell's got a loose band" his companion drawled. 
Soon another fell close in front of them. 

"Say, Doc, they're shooting at us. We'd better duck," and 
they ducked into a dug-out just in time to avoid a hit squarely 
where they had been standing. 

One day, he said, he stooped to pick up an exceptionally fine 
camouflaged helmet and found it had the severed head of a 
German in it. Something about this story seemed familiar to 

257 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

me, but I didn't say anything — our soldiers had the habit of cut- 
ting heads off, apparently. 

I slept at the Officers' Club again on a park seat and had for 
company an engineer captain out of luck. He was touring the 
old front in a side-car with a colored striker as his driver, but 
without a pass. During the evening his driver announced that 
the side-car had just burnt up. Some joy-riders slipped it out 
and had a gasoline explosion, and as a result, the captain would 
have to account for the car and also for his being in Verdun 
without authority. 

Saturday morning I took advantage of a rare opportunity 
to ride west of the Meuse to Cheppy in the Argonne forest and 
back and made several sketches and returned by noon. I left 
Verdun at i 130 p. m. on the narrow-gauge, road. Third class 
cars only were provided. The train was slow, dirty and uncom- 
fortable. There was no ticket agent at the station, no conductor 
on the train, and no fare to pay. The country on the way was 
thick with dug-outs, trenches, wire entanglements, ammunition 
dumps, and camps including aviation. The surface was mostly 
hilly, wooded in places, but deserted and ruined. This railroad 
for some reason was not destroyed — probably because it was so 
small, while the broad-gauge road out of Verdun was destroyed. 
The narrow-gauge was the communication that saved Verdun. 

One of the American soldiers on the train had a ( ierman offi- 
cer's beautifully spiked helmet that he had bought in Verdun from 
an ambulance driver, who hauled in a load of them from Metz. 
The price in Verdun was seventy-five francs, which seemed ex- 
cessive to me, but I have seen them sell elsewhere in France 
since then for two hundred. Another soldier was a good corn- 
median — evidently had been on the stage- — from his extended 
repertoire and furnished us with an all-afternoon entertainment ; 
but no amount of singing and noisy conversation by the soldiers 
could drown the high-pitched voices of two French dames whose 
siren vocals carried across the car to each other above the din. 

Our train barely crept along, but finally brought us to Bar- 
le-duc, a distance of twenty-seven miles from Verdun, in seven 
hours. 

There I was required for the first time to show my travel- 
order, and while waiting to get it stamped, Lieutenant Rochelle. 
one of my officer students at Camp Taylor, hailed me. We 

258 



GREAT CROWDS GOING TO SEE PRESIDENT WILSON 

lunched together at a French Red Cross counter for two francs 
each, where the lieutenant told me he was attached to the One 
Hundred and Tenth regiment. Thirty-fifth division, when the 
Eighty-fourth division was disbanded, and had two weeks of 
front-line service before the signing" of the armistice. One of 
his experiences was stalking a German sniper camouflaged in a 
tree so as to look like a bunch of mistletoe, a common parasite in 
the trees of this part of France. He was east of Verdun about 
Etain. He stopped one day to pick up a fine camouflaged Bosch 
helmet and found a German head in it ! OH, BOY ! 

My train from Chateau-Thierry, due at 1 1 130 that night, 
was an hour late, and pulled in full to overflowing. All of the 
dozen or more cars seemed too full to get a foothold in, and I 
let them go by, but jumped on the last one anyway in spite of 
the loud protests by French soldiers, who filled every seat and 
aisle. The train started with me in the door and my pack lodged, 
seeing which, the half-dozen nearest soldiers pulled and squeezed 
me on in until the door (the doors were in the sides of the cars) 
would close. Unbalanced on one foot, ready to fall into the laps 
of poilus sitting in the aisle had I not braced against the car with 
my arms, I could not stand the strain, and by sheer force, re- 
gardless of a chorus of howls, made a clearing of legs and bag- 
gage under me big enough to stand on with both feet. The train 
was going to Paris where the newly arrived President Wilson 
was the attraction. I could not see out and was afraid of being 
carried past my station, and also afraid to inquire of the French 
— there were none on the car with me but French— lest they 
should tell me wrong to get rid of me. At every stop crowds 
were waiting to get aboard, and three or four did jamb them- 
selves in at the other door, over the protests of all of us. 

Arriving at Chateau-Thierry at 5 130 a. m. there was no 
chance for a bed, so I stretched out on a seat in the R. T. O. 
office at the railway station. It was near 8 a. m. when I awoke, 
and by signs, was directed to a French Red Cross restaurant 
where I had a good breakfast for three francs, and an amusing 
preliminary experience in making the woman attendant under- 
stand that I wanted to wash my face and hands. I went through 
all the motions for her, at which she looked with an expression 
of alarm at first, then a light broke and exclaiming "wee lavage," 
led me to a wash-stand in another building and brought a towel. 

259 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

I expected to meet Lieutenant Powers, of our Infantry 
Specialists' School, here, but we failed to connect. He was 
coming by way of Paris to locate the grave of a brother killed 
in the fight here last June. 

The German offensive, which was to capture Paris and end 
the war, started early and electrified the world with its rapid 
advance. The English gave way in the north and at the south 
the French were staggering under the blow of the great German 
army, and all hope of stopping it seemed lost. 




CHATEAU-THIERRY. WEST BRIDGE BLOWN UP BY THE FRENCH TO STOP 
THE GERMAN ADVANCE, JUNE 2, 1918, ABOUT 11 P. M. See Page 271. 



The Americans had only been trusted to assist the Allies in 
holding comparatively quiet sectors. Their courage and fight- 
ing qualities, in such a warfare as had developed in the past 
three years were unknown. The Fifth and Sixth U. S. Marines 
were at Verdun on the critical night of May 30, where they had 
been for several months assisting the French there. They were 
ordered to Chateau-Thierry, where the break in the line oc- 
curred. Eight thousand of them were loaded into trucks, and 
all that night and next day were hurried forward without stop- 
ping to eat or sleep. They, with other troops, were thrown into 

260 



THE FIGHT AT BALLOU WOODS 

the fight to help the machine-gun battalions of the Third divi- 
sion, which had checked the German advance, as related in a 
following chapter. Of the eight thousand marines who went 
into the fight, six thousand were killed or wounded. Our troops, 
including all arms of the service, were opposed by sixty thou- 
sand of the famous Prussian Guard — the finest in the world — 
flushed with victory. Cut the Prussians went up against a new- 
experience ; the deadly fire of the American sharp-shooters, with 
months of careful rifle-range practice back of them. Our sol- 
diers picked off the Hun officers first, and then at the rate of 
ten shots each per minute, went after the Bosch soldiers. A 
German fell at every American shot with a bullet in his head or 
tnrough his breast — dead, not wounded. The Prussian soldier 
was not used to that kind of fighting and it finally overwhelmed 
him so that he turned and ran. The Americans were just as 
good with the bayonet. A few weeks later they chased the Ger- 
man army through the Argonne Forest, across the Meuse, and 
but for the armistice, would have run him back into Berlin. 

The American engineers were given guns at Chateau-Thierry 
and sent into the fight. Lieutenant Powers' brother, an engi- 
neer, was killed at Ballou Woods ten minutes after he was given 
a rifle. 

Captain Robbins, from Worcester, Mass., a fellow-instructor 
at the Infantry Specialists' School and my mess-mate there, was 
with his battalion, part of the celebrated "Yankee Division," in 
this fight at Ballou Woods. His men were at Soissons for three 
months previously and had been sent back for a rest in one of 
the shell-ruined villages, but the Bosch kept shelling them and 
killed more men than they had lost at the front. When his bat- 
talion evacuated for Chateau-Thierry Hun aeroplanes followed 
and bombed it. At Ballou Woods Captain Robbins told me there 
was no opportunity to bury the dead, and the stench was unen- 
durable. Burial-parties were sent out but they were so badly 
shot up bv the Germans that more men were killed than the 
number of bodies they were sent out to bury, and burial efforts 
were abandoned. The weather was hot, and putrefaction set in 
earlv. All water came in wagons from the rear. If the wagons 
got through safely there was a canteenful a day per man, but if 
not the one canteenful had to last over ; washing, shaving and all 
use of water except for drinking and cooking purposes was pro- 

261 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



hibited. The big naval guns brought up and used there, shook 
the earth when they were fired, and made a flash that was blind- 
ing. There was one continual roar, whiz-bang and buzz of bul- 
lets, and at night the sky was illuminated by the flash of artillery- 
fire on both sides. One day he stopped to pick up a camouflaged 
German helmet and found the head of a German soldier in it ! 

Chateau-Thierry is only fifty miles from Paris, by automo- 
bile or rail. Partly because of the nearness, but more because of 
its historical fascination, Chateau-Thierry is now visited by 
countless Americans, and will be a Mecca for our future pa- 
triots. Unless my perspective is wrong Chateau-Thierry and 
Verdun will go down in American history as our two greatest 
battlefields in the World war. The Argonne Forest and St. 
Mihiel are strong connecting links, but they do not possess the 
same dramatic interest. 

I made a sketch of what was left of the old stone bridge, 
built in 1621, and destroyed by the engineers to halt the German 
advance. I passed through the damaged part of the town — bad 
enough but nothing to compare with the wreck of Verdun — and 
climbed the hill-stairs back of the imposing jnodern Mairie, or 
city hall, to the ruins of the Chateau and fort built in 730. The 
English captured it in 1411, the Spanish in 1501, Diaries V. in 
1544, and Prussian cannon damaged it in 1814, when Napoleon 
licked fifty thousand with less than half that number. 

At the very top, within the walls of the fort, is a new grave 
to the "unknown dead." Ballou Woods, still full of shell-holes, 

is about five miles out past 




hill number 204. A splen- 
did view in their direction, 
and of the town and river 
and of the encircling hills to 
the westward can be had 
from the fort. 

I journeyed back to Lan- 
gres from here by rail, where 
I arrived after midnight on 
Sunday. I had to climb the steep hill with my pack on and up to 
the fourth floor of the army hospital before I could get into bed. 
The hotels of the town were all full. 

My earliest recollection late next morning was of hearing a 
262 



WALLS OF FORT AT CHATEAU- 
THIERRY, BUILT IN 730 



GOING AFTER THE COOTIES 

soldier talking" to his "bunkie" so close to where I lay that I 
could have reached out and touched him. 

"Oh, boy, I feel fine now ; just had a bath and got rid of all 
my cooties ; salvaged all my old clothes too." 

I had been so exposed throughout my trip that I began to 
scratch at once and really feared I had 'em. 

"Say," I called, "what's your name?" 

"Private Smith, Sir !" 

"Well, Private Smith, were you ever in a battle?" 

"Yes, St. Mihiel and the Argonne." 

"Did you ever try to pick up a camouflaged German helmet 
and find a decapitated Bosch head in it, held in by the chin- 
strap ?" 

"No. Why?" 

"Just wanted to verify your story about getting rid of all 
your cooties. If you were in a battle, and say you never picked 
up a German helmet with a human head in it — I'll believe any- 
thing you say. Tell me where to go to get rid of my collection 
of cooties." 

As my eyes had been troubling me on account of unfavorable 
working conditions at Ft. Plesnoy, I visited the Army Optician 
at Langres, and he gave them an examination and treatment, 
and a wash to take with me. After some trouble I secured an 
automobile to take me to the fort, where I found I might have 
remained longer and come home by way of Paris. But I was 
tired and glad to get back to my own quarters. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THE AMERICAN BATTLE OF CHATEAU-THIERRY, JUNE, I918 

I had been sent to the front several times while stationed at 
Fort Plesnoy, near Langres, and, as stated in the preceding pages 
the last one of these trips extended as far west as Chateau- 
Thierry, where I made sketches of the town itself and of Hill 
204, and Ballou Woods, which are visible from the old fort-hill 
below which the town is built. The army schools at Langres, 
and the circle of forts around it, where the last word in the 

263 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

special training for the Great War was imparted to picked offi- 
cers and men, had just closed on account of the signing of the 
armistice, and I was transferred to General Pershing's headquar- 
ters at Chaumont about two hours distance by Cadillac 8 from 
Langres. I was attached to G-5, the educational section of the 
general staff, and. at the time I write, February, 1919, was work- 
ing on a musketry manual embodying the teachings of the war. 
General Pershing's office was directly under ours, and from our 
windows, we could see him come and go, and, incidentally, wit- 
ness reviews for royalty and the great military personages who 
came to pay their respects to our general. We were also enter- 
tained and amused with several cheek-kissing ceremonies where- 
at the French and Belgian decorations were pinned to the brave 
breasts of many of our warriors. 

I was billeted in the house of an estimable old widow, Mme. 
Chenolt, at 36 Carriere Roullot, who insisted on polishing my 
shoes and leather "puts" each night, and, as she lived a mile or 
more from the American headquarters, and on the other side of 
Chaumont, I had to travel the narrow and crooked streets of the 
quaint old town at least twice a day. 

I stopped once to sketch the cathedral and its approaches, 
from a turn in the thoroughfare, and sat on a stone block by an 
entrance through the high wall, at right angles to that part of the 
street in front of me. I asked a small French boy of six who 
was trying to shoot me with a wooden gun, if he could "parle-voo 
Americana?" He shook his head but said his brother could. 
Presently his brother — a lad of seventeen — came and looked over 
my shoulder. He could talk very good English and said he had 
won a scholarship for Williams College and was coming to 
school in America in the fall. He called my attention to a num- 
ber, "33," with the figure of the cross below, on the gate post 
near my head, which meant that thirty-three people were killed in 
the house at the massacre of St. Bartholomew. He told me 
further that his father was a captain in the French Army ; that 
his mother and children lived near Chateau-Thierry, at the little 
town of Mezy until last July, but their home, and everything they 
had, was destroyed by the Germans and they fled here as ref- 
ugees—glad to save their lives. 

I had heard so many discussions by G. H. Q. officers about 
the fight at Chateau-Thierry and vicinity last summer (1918), 

264 



MAJOR JOHN R. MENDENHALL 

when the German drive had broken through the British lines to 
the north, and bent the French back within fifty miles of Paris 
to the point of despair, that I confessedly eavesdropped while a 
young major, with a deep scar from eyebrow to hair across the 
right forehead, described to Colonel Fulmer, my immediate su- 
perior, his experience as captain of one of the machine-gun com- 
panies that saved the day for the Allies and started the Bosch 
back through the Argonne and to his final defeat. 

"That youngster's had a great experience, Minturn. I must 
get the General to send him with you so you can make drawings 
of the battle for our manual." A few days later the official order 
came from General Pershing. We had a chauffeur and a Cadillac 
8, at our disposal and as this tour of duty covers the same terri- 
tory by travel from Chateau-Thierry to Verdun, but in a reverse 
direction from the one just described, and supplements the latter 
in so many ways, I will give the experience here instead of 
chronologically as it happened to me. 

Major John R. Mendenhall, then only twenty-five years of 
age, was a graduate of West Point, as his father and grandfather 
before him had been, and it will be of interest to Indianians that 
the grandfather lived at Westfield, Ind., when he received his 
appointment to West Point, and the family still owns property in 
that Indiana town. 

We left Chaumont by the Paris road, which winds three 
times under the high stone arches of the great railway viaduct, 
and were kept busy saluting the colored American soldiers, who 
were everywhere — remaking the once beautiful roads — now full 
of chuck holes developed by the heavy trucking of the war. The 
easy grades of the highways of France, here winding along or 
across the high hills and ridges, are splendid examples of engi- 
neering developed through centuries, reaching back to Caesar's 
time, and they can be located as far as the eye can see by double 
rows of high poplars and other trees, aged, moss-covered, and 
full of mistletoe. The moss, in fact, is everywhere. Its velvet of 
golden green is a mantle to the ground, to the stone walls and 
houses, to the tiles on the roofs, and almost to the people who 
live so slowly and so far behind the times — blending everything 
into that restful harmony which is the special charm of France. 

"We arrived in France about April 15, 1918," said the major 
as we drove along. "I was captain of B Company, Seventh 

265 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Machine Gun Battalion, Third Division. The division was bil- 
leted in the training area around Chateauvillian, and our bat- 
talion was at La Ferte-Sur-Aube. We'll go there first and then 
follow the same roads we took when ordered to Chateau-Thierry. 
Our organization was the machine gun battalion of the division 
and had two companies with twenty-four active and eight reserve 
guns ; twenty-four officers and 353 men. Our motor equipment 
was not received until May 20, when we got twenty-four half-ton 
Ford trucks and two Ford touring cars for each company, and 
six trucks and one touring car for battalion headquarters. We 
began at once to teach the men how to drive the cars. Our 
other training schedule called for two months of preliminary 
training — followed by a short period of trench-duty in some quiet 
sector of the front. This should have put us on trench-dutv 
about July 1, 1918. 

"An Hind 10 a. m. of May 30 — Decoration day at home — an 
order came to our major. Edward G. Taylor, to go at once on 
our own transportation to Conde-en-Brie, and report to the 
French officer commanding that sector. Speed was urged be- 
cause the German drive was forcing back the French and the 
British troops and all reserves must be thrown in at once to stop 
the enemy and save Paris." 

The major and I had reached La-Ferte and were crossing the 
bridge over a small stream on which was a large mill : 

"Here is where we started to train," he pointed, "and where 
we received the hurry-up-order to go to the front. When loaded 
we found that our cars had on three times their capacity, but 
the battalion left La-Ferte at 2 155 p. m. in good order. The 
major went ahead, followed by A Company and then by B, after 
which came several three-ton trucks with extra ammunition, gas- 
oline and equipment." 

"We had difficulty right away in making the steep grades on 
account of unavoidable overloading. In many cases the rear 
springs touched the axles, and blow-outs were frequent because 
the tires could not stand the extra pressure ; we were soon badly 
strung out along the road. 

"We made no stop for supper and reached Arces-Sur-Aube 
by 8:30 p. m. We were out of gasoline and hoped to get some 
there, but could not, and had to wait for our three-ton trucks 
which came in near midnight. Our route was by Mer-Sur-Seine. 

266 



ROADS BLOCKED WITH FRENCH REFUGEES 



Anglure, Sezanne, Montmort, and Orbays. We came out of Se- 
zanne on this road we're on now about 5 a. m. of May 31. It was 
blocked with refugees with household goods, babies, old women, 
i'.nd children crowded and piled on carts to which cows and don- 
keys were hitched, which they goaded and pulled, or perhaps 
pulled the carts themselves. Loaded wheelbarrows and dog-carts 
were in the jamb with men and women carrying their heavy 
loads and frightened children clinging to what they could to keep 
themselves from being trodden down or lost. The expressions on 
the faces of the refugees was most pitiful and we began for the 




FRENCH FAMILIES FLEEING FROM THE GERMANS, ON THE ROAD OUT 
OF SEZANNE, MAY 31, 191S 

first time to realize something of the real meaning of war. Fur- 
ther on, spaces between carts were forced and filled by small de- 
tachments of French and British troops, all looking thoroughly 
demoralized and discouraged. Following these came artillery 
blocking the road entirely at times, the faces of the men showing 
signs of great fatigue and many sleepless nights. Some of the 
light batteries were going into position there on the south slopes 
of these hills and were firing vigorously, which added to the 
confusion and frightfulness. One cannot look at the road now 
and imagine what I can but faintly describe. 

267 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

"This appalling jamb of terrified traffic made it impossobk 
for us to keep our train intact, and as a result, our arrival at 
Conde-en-Brie was very fragmentary. Great credit is due the 
individual man, and especially the drivers for the way they han- 
dled the cars and for their untiring efforts to keep them moving 
and on the proper roads to reach our destination." 

The major and I reached Conde-en-Brie, built on a hill. Its 
many shell-shattered buildings told us that we were getting into 
the battle-scourged area. We negotiated the steep hill easily 
with our powerful car, to the Mairie at the center of the town, 
and inquired where we could purchase some post-cards. A shell 
had demolished all but the sign of the village book store, but in 
a kitchen in the rear we found the proprietress, who sold us out 
of a scant remnant of her stock. 

"By 2 p. m. the entire battalion except the three-ton trucks 
had arrived here at Conde," the major explained, "again almost 
out of gasoline and our major reported to General Marchand, of 
the French army at Janvier Ferme. We were told the enemy 
was expected to begin shelling Conde at any time, and were 
ordered to evacuate to Janvier Ferme. Our gas-tanks were so 
nearly empty that our Fords would not pull the hill southwest 
of the town, so, filling a few tanks by emptying gasoline from 
the others, we moved what part of our companies we could and 
the remainder marched on foot carrying their guns, equipment, 
and packs. They were later picked up by the cars which had 
filled their tanks upon arrival of the three-ton trucks." 

"A French courier, greatly excited, met us here," the major 
pointed to a part of the road by which we were leaving Conde, 
"and urged us to hurry or all would be lost ! A full regiment of 
French cavalry was apparently waiting orders in yonder field, 
and numberless detachments of French and British soldiers were 
hurrying across fields in every direction, in what seemed to be 
the greatest confusion." 

We were on a ridge-road and approaching Nesles, a suburb 
of Chateau-Thierry, when Major Mendenhall stopped the car 
and we dismounted. 

"Our Major Taylor, with our two company commanders, pre- 
ceded the battalion from Conde to this point above Nesles," he 
continued, "where he reported to a French general commanding 
a colonial division. This officer, after outlining the scheme of 

268 



SEVENTH MACHINE GUN BATTALION 

defense, instructed the company commanders to report to a French 
lieutenant-colonel then in the town of Chateau-Thierry, who 
would indicate the positions we were to occupy. We left instruc- 
tions for our battalion to rendezvous in Nesles, and, proceeding 
to Giateau-Thierry by automobile, found the lieutenant-colonel 
had crossed to the north side of the river Marne where he had 
been captured by a German patrol. The officer, a French cap- 
tain who gave us this information, urged us to bring our troops 
into the town with all speed to prevent the enemy crossing the 
bridge to the south side of the river. 

"When we got back to Nesles about half of each company 
had arrived from Conde-en-Brie, and, assembling gunsquads as 
quickly as possible, we transported them hurriedly in what cars 
were still in running condition, to Chateau-Thierry, where we 
reported to Major Taylor in the Place Carnot (see accompany- 
ing map). By 6 p. m. about six gunsquads from each company 
were available and were assigned positions which roughly di- 
vided the town into two sectors — Company A on the west toward 
the cathedral and Hill 204 ; Company B the east toward the sugar 
factory and Brasles, each being responsible, for the defense of a 
bridge, the local river margin, and one flank. 




MAP OF CHATEAU-THIERRY BATTI.KFIKLD. JUNE 1, 191S 



"Second Lieutenant Cobbey, of Company B, had a machine 
gun in a two-story brick house (D) on the bank of the river, 
ready to fire from a lower window and cover the river bank 
from the bridge east, and one in a shed on the east of this build- 
ing with range to the northeast. Second Lieutenant Paul T. 

269 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Funkhauser had three guns in a wooded peninsula (E) six hun- 
dred yards to the east of the bridge we were defending ; two guns 
ranging west along the river, and one east. Two guns under 
First Lieutenant Charles Montgomery were in a sunken garden 
(A), two hundred yards south of the bridge, which also enfi- 
laded it. The other guns of Company B were held at battalion 
headquarters as a reserve. My post of command was established 
under the railroad bank (W) giving me a covered line of com- 
munication to all my guns and to the battalion post of command 
located in a house near Place Carnot. This arrangement was 
completed by 3 a. m. June 1. 

"About 4 a. m. just as daylight was getting strong, a column 
of German infantry was observed marching west from the town 
of Brasles along the road paralleling the river, toward Chateau- 
Thierry. They apparently did not know they were in danger, 
in fact, we afterward learned that they believed the French had 
abandoned the town and they expected to march through and 
cross the river, halting for the night at Montmort. The guns un- 
der Lieutenants Cobbey and Funkhauser opened fire when the 
enemy got to a slight bend in the road. The German discipline 
was such that the troops continued to advance until our positions 
were apparently located, when they deployed into the wheat fields 
between the road and the river. The grain stood waist high so 
the men were lost to view. However, our men whipped the field 
continuously with machine-gun fire, causing heavy casualties to 
the enemy. At 5 a. m., or within an hour, our guns on the pen- 
insula were located and fired upon by enemy machine-guns, 
wounding a man and forcing the rest to withdraw. Our other 
guns continued their effective fire. Making a rapid reconnais- 
sance with First Lieutenant J. W. Ransdall, I placed him with 
two guns near some small buildings where the railroad crosses 
the Crezancy highway (F). By this time the enemy machine-gun 
fire was much heavier, coming apparently from the high ridge in 
the north distance across the Marne from us. A call by phone to 
the French artillery brought a response within just two minutes, 
in the form of a '75' barrage on the north, or opposite side 
of the Marne, and extending from the railroad bridge we were 
defending, five hundred yards east toward Brasles, and creep- 
ing thence north for five hundred yards toward the long ridge 
there. It was the prettiest job you ever saw from our point of 
view, and practically cleaned the wheat fields of all Germans. A 

270 



THE FIGHT AT THE RAILROAD BRIDGE 

general artillery duel now commenced which lasted through the 
next three days. This shelling made it advisable to move Lieu- 
tenants Montgomery's and Cobbey's guns. 

"At nightfall of June 2 the enemy machine-gun and artillery 
fire increased tremendously, and we increased ours in the same 
proportion, keeping at least one gun firing on the bridge at all 
times. About 1 1 o'clock that night I heard a terrific explosion, 
shortly after which all of my guns ceased firing, and after a while 
Lieutenant Bissel, of Company A, came to my post of command 
with several wounded men belonging to his company. He said 
he had taken part in a counter-attack by the French and got left 
on the north bank of the river ; that the French had blown up the 
west bridge to keep the Germans from following them and this 
had cut off his retreat, forcing him to make a run for the rail- 




VIEW OF CHATEAU-THIERRY, LOOKING SOUTHEAST FROM THE FORT. 

THE NEAR TOWER IS THAT OF THE CITY HALL, WHERE THE GERMANS 

HAD A MACHINE GUN. THE EAST RAILROAD BRIDGE IS SHOWN A HALF 

INCH TO THE LEFT OF THE TOP OF THIS TOWER 



road bridge we were defending. Lieutenant Cobbey controlled 
the fire of our guns on the railroad bridge, but knew the < Ger- 
mans had enfilading fire from their side of the river. He heard 
Lieutenant Bissel's call for Company B to hold its fire ; that some 
of Company A were about to cross. But not being satisfied with 
holding his fire Lieutenant Cobbey unhesitatingly crossed the 
bridge in the face of the enemy fire, found Lieutenant Bissel 
with his men preparing to swim the river, and dissuading them, 
led them back over the bridge to safety. This act of heroism 
was characteristic of all of our men. 

271 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

"Fearing that enemy troops had followed Lieutenant Bissel's 
party across the bridge, and were hiding for a surprise attack, 
Major Taylor sent me four of the battalion reserve guns, which 
I placed as best I could, but except for heavy gas-shelling, noth- 
ing further occurred during the night. 

"On the morning of June 3 we dug a pit (M) in an open field 
as a better position for one of the four extra guns, but the enemy 
air scouts saw us and we put the gun in a building (N) near the 
wagon-road. Just a few minutes after we abandoned the pit, 
v/hich we camouflaged before leaving, a German shell was 
dropped almost into it and would have killed our men had they 
been there. There was a French passenger coach on a switch in 
the yard near the bridge, under which car our men who were in 
the open would duck for cover from aerial observation. During 
the morning Lieutenant Montgomery, leaving his former guns 
under Lieutenant Funkhauser, took those having no overhead 
cover to positions (01) where he covered the railroad track, and 
to a house (02), from the second floor of which he did effective 
long-range firing at the enemy groups on the long ridge across 
the river. After the slaughter on the level road near the wheat 
field the enemy worked toward Chateau-Thierry on the ridge 
where they could be seen by the aid of our field glasses. For sev- 
eral days our men tried out their machine-gun theory by practice 
on human targets. 

"We were supported by French Colonial troops, among them 
the Senagalese sharpshooters — wild, fierce, dark-skinned, silent 
iellows, who gave you constant thrills at night by unexpectedly 
challenging at the point of a wicked-looking bayonet. By day also 
their conduct excited my curiosity. A group would be sitting 
silently under cover when, without any command, one of them 
would get up at intervals, face the enemy ridge across the Marne, 
gaze intently for a minute or two, raise his rifle and fire — then 
go back and sit down. After some observation with my glasses 
I learned what they were doing. They could see incredibly far, 
and when they located a gap in a far-away hedge, back of which 
the Germans were moving, up came a rifle and down dropped a 
German !" 

"We were relieved at 3 a. m. on June 4 by Lieutenant Hose 
and Company A, Ninth Machine-gun Battalion, Third division. 
My company left town for the woods south of Fontenelle, in 

272 



WON BY THE 7th and 9th MACHINE GUN BATTALIONS 

three large trucks, over a road being constantly shelled. The 
firing was so heavy during the early part of the night that it was 
necessary to change the guns under Lieutenant Cobbey for cool 




THE EAST (RAILROAD) BRIDGE DEPENDED BY THE SEVENTH MACHINE 

GUN COMPANY, UNDER CAPTAIN MENDENHALL, JUNE 1, 1918. IT WAS 

AFTERWARDS BLOWN UP BY THE FRENCH. I MADE SKETCHES FROM 

FIRST TOWER TO LEFT OF THE TALL SMOKE STACK OF SUGAR 

REFINERY 

ones, and these fresh guns became so hot after a couple of hours 
of firing that they could not be dismounted, and were left with 
the relieving company. 

"Our Seventh Machine-gun Batallion was assembled near 
Fontenelle by 5 a. m., on June 4, and proceeded to billets at Cour- 
bon, where we were met in person and congratulated by Major- 
General J. T. Dickman, at that time commanding the Third 
division. 

"Our losses throughout the entire engagement were rela- 
tively small — being one officer. First Lieutenant Thomas God- 
dard, Company B, and four enlisted men killed, and thirty-two 
men wounded — in nearly all cases from shell fire. No American 
troops except these two machine-gun battalions of the Third 
division were at any time engaged in the town of Chateau- 
Thierry itself, this town being in a French sector throughout the 
second and third battles of the Marne with the Second division 
sector on the west, and the sector of the Third division on the 
east." 

This is the story of the opening engagement of the battle of 
Chateau-Thierry as gathered from the officer in command at the 
critical hours and at the places where the German pressure was 
most intense. It was not told at one time, but on several occa- 
sions, as we visited the spots referred to. 

273 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

"Too much credit cannot be given the men of the battalion; 
their action throughout was cool and courageous," was the clos- 
ing declaration by Major Mendenhall to a class of generals and 
high army officials escorted by General Crookshank, who hap- 
pened to be at Chateau-Thierry on a tour of the front when we 
arrived, and who pressed the major into service to explain what 
he witnessed here and at Mezy while history was in the making. 
''Our men did their duty and carried out orders or used their 
initiative where orders were not at hand, absolutely regardless of 
personal danger. Coming fresh from the United States without 
the opportunity afforded the earlier arrivals for completing their 
training, they were rushed practically overnight into a battle 
upon the outcome of which depended in a great measure the 
success of the Allied cause. Had the enemy succeeded in cross- 
ing the Marne at Chateau-Thierry on that June first there was 
i.othing to hinder their advance to Montmirail and Sezanne, as 
they had done in 1914, and threatening, if not actually capturing 
Paris herself." 

*Most of this chapter was printed by permission in The Indian- 
apolis News of November 1, 1919. 



274 



THE BATTLE OF MEZY 



CHAPTER XXX 

FROM CHATEAU-THIERRY TO THE ARGONNE 

Intermittent fighting continued through June in the vi- 
cinity of Chateau-Thierry, as at Hill 204 and Ballou Woods, 
which have been so widely written about. Reinforcements had 
been brought up by both sides and the Germans made their last 
determined effort to pass the Marne near the middle of July. 
Indeed the enemy crossed in several places but were driven back. 
One of the engagements which particularly interested the class 
of generals referred to above, was on the Marne at Mezy about 
two hours' run by machine from Chateau-Thierry. Mezy was 
where the French refugee lad at Chaumont was driven from and 
is the same distance east of Chateau-Thierry that Ballou Woods 
is west. Part of the Third division was in the fight particularly 
memorable because a single company — G — of the Thirty-eighth 
infantry, defeated two crack German regiments; the Fifth and 
Sixth Prussian Guards. 

The railroad from Paris and Chateau-Thierry' runs east 
through the town, parallelling the Marne, which flows a kilo- 
meter or two away between the railroad and a bald ridge at the 
base of which is a wagon-road, running into the village of Char- 
treves, almost a continuation of Mezy, past the Catholic cathedral 
to the north. Cultivated fields extend up the river banks from 
both sides, and the river from the level of the railroad track is 
only definable by two hedge-like fringes. The fields between 
the railroad and the river are drained and separated by hedge- 
bordered ditches, one of which paralleling the track, was in di- 
rect alignment with the Cathedral. 

German artillery was planted somewhere out of sight on the 
far side of the ridge, and the German infantry was crossing the 
Marne and approaching the railroad which occupies an embank- 
ment of several feet and which branches here just a few yards 
east of the Mezy station. The branch follows a valley to the 

275 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 




south occupied andcontrolled 
in July, 19 1 8, by the Amer- 
ican Third Division. The 
mouth of this valley, down 
which our troops advanced to 
repel the Germans on that 
15th of July, was flat and 
open next to the railroad 
and for a half-mile or more 
down the valley. The branch 
road was on a high embank- 
ment, which afforded good 
cover when reached, but to 
get to it, our troops had to 
cross an open valley then be- 
ing heavily shelled by the 
German artillery. This bar- 
rage so increased that only 
G company, Thirty-eighth 
infantry got over, but they 
•nade a heroic stand and were 
watched from the ridge to 
the rear by their Colonel 
McAlexander and Major 
Howe, unable to reinforce 
them. The fields between 
the railroad and the Marne 
were strewn with Germaji 
dead and the graveyard close 
by where our boys fought, 
with its near two hundred 
wooden crosses, speaks elo- 
quently of the tribute Amer- 
ica paid to the cause of free- 
dom. The hedge-ditch in 
line with the cathedral pre- 
viously referred to, was 
elbow-to-elbow thick with 
German machine gunners, 
who raked the railroads so 
it was fatal for a G com- 



A NIGHT AT CHARLEY 

pany man to attempt to look over at the enemy. One of the sec- 
ond lieutenants suggested that he could lead a platoon of men 
through Mezy to the cathedral by crawling under cover of the 
railway-grade and making a dash for it, and his captain gave his 
consent to try. This proved successful. The platoon in reaching 
the cathedral were in position to beautifully enfilade the ditch and 
raked it so thoroughly with rifle-fire that every Bosche machine- 
gun was not only silenced but abandoned, and the enemy driven 
back across the Marne. The cathedral was badly shelled. 

"Dead Germans lay so thick in that ditch," said Major Men- 
denhall "that when we went to bury them next morning we could 
not step without pushing a body away to get foot room. 

"Many of the machine-guns were loaded and aimed, ready to 
vomit a stream of bullets by pressing a trigger but the trigger 
was not pressed again because the gunner lay dead at his 
machine." 

The dramatic interest to Americans in Chateau-Thierry and 
vicinity is so great, and they are so close to Paris — fifty miles by 
automobile — and easily accessible that Chateau-Thierry at once 
became a Mecca for sightseers, army and otherwise, then in 
Europe. A large part of the west section of the town adjacent 
the base of the old fortified hill, was badly shelled and rendered 
uninhabitable, so that the congestion from tourists, added to by the 
class of thirty or more generals and high army officers who hap- 
pened to be at Chateau-Thierry on that Saturday night when 
Major Mendenhall and I arrived from Chaumont, made it impos- 
sible for us to find a place to sleep. Learning this, and with a 
car at our disposal, we thought to run out to one of the neighbor- 
ing towns for the night, and the major suggested the consider- 
able town of Charley, ten or twelve miles distant, where he had 
billeted with his company and had defended it for several days 
during the troublous times of last summer ; but upon arriving 
there all hotel space was taken or "finee" as the word uttered by 
every Boniface sounded to me. We had dropped into a sale of 
British army horses at this town. The mayor's office was dark, 
but a dim light across the street led us to an acquaintance with a 
gendarme who had been in America and talked fluent English, 
or rather American. The gendarme took us in the direction of 
the mayor's house, near where we picked up one of his deputies 
who helped us rout out the mayor and impress him with our 

277 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

pathetic situation. The mayor went into deep study. Troubled 
thought chased back-and-forth over his candle-lit visage with no 
apparent results until, we noted increasinig agony, irresolution, 
and final resolve. Then he gave voluminous instructions to his 
deputy who grew timid and argumentative, but the mayor was 
firm, and we were given to understand that we were to follow 
the deputy. Outside we thanked the gendarme, and, by the aid 
of a couple of francs, succeeded in dismissing him. 

We were led through the dark to the aristocratic part of 
Charley, and after the deputy had sufficiently braced himself, he 
rang the porter's bell in a high iron fence below a four-story 
chateau. We were admitted and led past a fountain in a front 
yard, through a spacious hall, into a living room considerably 
above the average of the always tastefully furnished French 
houses, to the presence of an old woman who had the evening 
Paris paper opened out before her on a center-table. She listened 
to the petition as presented by the deputy for sleeping quarters 
for the night for two American officers who had been unable to 
find accommodations elsewhere — then she rose from her chair 
and replied in words that I could not understand, but with tones 
and gestures that told me our petition was being vigorously de- 
nied. Major Mendenhall's appeal — that he had been in com- 
mand of troops only a few weeks before who had saved her prop- 
erty from pillage and destruction by the Germans had no soften- 
ing effect on that woman. "No! No! No!" she cried, "I've been 
bothered enough with soldiers now. No ! no ! no !" 

As we left with the prospects of sleeping in our machine the 
major declared, "That is the meanest woman in France ! I wish 
1 had known her when I was here with my men — we'd have set 
up the company kitchen in her parlor." 

We were invited to his own house by the deputy, where he put 
us in a room stored with his 'daughter's furniture. This he 
moved enough to let us into a very good bed, which he did not 
want to take compensation for the next morning. For the next 
two nights we slept two in a bed in an attic located for us in 
Chateau-Thierry by the town major, for which privilege we 
paid a landlady ten francs each, and decided we would both 
return to that bananza town and start a rooming-house after our 
honorable discharges from the army. 

From Chateau-Thierrv we drove to Reims over roads 
278 



ON THE ROAD TO REIMS 

flanked as far as the eye could see on both sides by trenches, par- 
alleled by rows of posts, which were connected by mazes of 
barbed-wire, forming entanglements that kept the invaders across 
No-Man's-Land from too easy an entrance. Along our road 
were stacks of cheval-de-frise, the many radial arms of which 
were supports for wire-entanglements wont to be laid in emer- 
gencies across the road to block the traffic of the enemy. At 
many places were great tiers of loaded German artillery-shells 
in round wicker baskets, or the shorter shells of the trench- 
mortars nested in double rows inside of rectangular baskets; or 
perhaps strings of machine-gun cartridges in closed tin boxes, or 
half emptied from open ones, and mud-covered. Reims, like 
most French cities of any size, is easy enough to get into, but 
hard to get out of on a particular road, by reason of a labyrinth 
of narrow, crooked streets which lead to nowhere, or bring you 
back to where you started from. Consequently we did not de- 
part from there after we drove around the ruined cathedral just 
as we had intended. We steered largely by compass, which 
brought us into a section that no human being would voluntarily 
travel through for pleasure. When our Taride road-map called 
for a road going apparently toward our destination we found 
only a trace of one between two deep trenches, the dirt from 
which had partly buried the road in land-slides from little hills 
and mountains, thrown over by the soldiers, which rocked the 
machine like a boat in trouble. Connecting trenches crossed the 
road at intervals of the length of a city block or two, and these 
crossings were roughly bridged with poles the jolt of one of which 
jambed me against the top bow till my neck near cracked, and 
kept me afterward holdinig to my seat for fear I'd miss a bow 
and keep on going up. Before the war each side of the road 
was lined with a row of tall trees, but these were gone, save an 
occasional stump or trunk of a tree every kilometer or two with 
nailed-on cleats by which observers reached the top to look over 
into the enemy's country. Trenches, lined with barren heaps of 
dirt like the furrows of gigantic plows, criss-crossed for miles to 
right and left where fields and villages had been. These trenches 
once ran to dug-outs and strong points in military order but all 
were now shot together by powerful enemy explosives until the 
pock-marks on the man in the moon carry as much pattern as 
these things originally laid out by engineers. The roots and 

279 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

seeds of weeds and other plants were turned too deep to sprout, 
and during the four years of struggle here between the giants 
the patrol 'of death from the bowels of the earth 10 as high as the 
eagle soars drove away every living creature except rats and men. 
It soothes and calms with hope of better days to read how the 
birds sing and flowers bloom on battle-fields where death was 




TRENCHES LINED WITH BARREN HEAPS OF DIRT LIKE THE FURROWS 

OF GIGANTIC PLOWS, CRISS-CROSSED FOR MILES WHERE FIELDS AND 

VILLAGES HAD BEEN 

yesterday supreme, but here were miles of despair worse than 
anything either of us who had traveled the old front extensively, 
had seen or dreamed of. It was off the beaten track. We got 
into it by taking the wrong road from Reims, and the fear of being 
caught there by approaching night made us risk a break-down 
and endure the torture of a higher speed than was safe. 

We saw little parallel tram-ways running to ammunition and 
subsistence "dumps" some with French and others further on 
with German signs, from which we knew that both contestants 
were close together here ; and after we began to fear that we 
were traveling the Hindenburg Line lengthwise we came out of 
the worst of it toward Montfaucon. We began to pass thou- 
sands of German prisoners whom the French, in poetic justice, 
were compelling to gather and stack the unused ammunition, and 
to shovel back the dirt and fill the shell-holes and trenches. 
Slowly' a more normal surface appearance was being restored. 

Before our artillery helped to shoot it to pieces, Montfaucon 
280 



CUNEL BATTLEFIELD 

was a town of goodly size on the top of a mountainous ridge 
south and east of the Argonne. It was a German stronghold and 
place of excellent observation toward the Meuse till the Amer- 
icans took it away from them. The Germans left one good house 
in Montfaucon ; said to have been used by the Crown Prince as 
his observatory. It was probably left undestroyed for the artil- 
lery to get the range by, but our soldiers feared it was a trap and 
kept out of it. Near it are immense shell-craters caused by shells 
dropped by aeroplanes endeavoring to blow up the house. Men- 
denhall, who had been promoted to a majority for gallantry at 
Chateau-Thierry, was in the fight here and called attention to the 
innumerable shallow ditches on the sides of the ridges leading 
to the town, each the length of a man, called "fox-holes," which 
the individual soldier dug for himself and dropped into for pro- 
tection. From there we drove to Madelaine Farm near the 
Cunel Woods in the Argonne north of Montfaucon, a strong 
position from which the Germans were driven in October, 1918, 
after hard fighting by the Sixth brigade of the Third division, to 
which Mendenhall had been transferred after his promotion. 




The Americans used the farm-building as a first-aid station, 
where our wounded soldiers were laid on the floors in double 
rows as there were so many of them. We found the spot where 
Major Mendenhall was laid after being brought wounded from 
nearby Cunel Woods. We crossed the open fields to the Ma- 
melle trenches, bare five hundred yards from Cunel Woods, 
where the Thirtieth infantry, Third division, was ordered from 
to the attack, and succeeded only under cover of night after six- 
teen hours of wicked fighting in which they were caught between 
frontal and machine-gun fire from both flanks. I picked up a 
German rifle here which I brought home as a souvenir, and was 

281 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

about to pick up a Bosch helmet when the major exclaimed, 
"That's covering a dead man's face. Don't you see his feet 
sticking out of the ground behind you?" I had not noticed them, 
but found it true and left that helmet for a later collector. 

From Cunel we drove to Cheppy and Vayennes ; the latter a 
base for the Third army corps during the Meuse-Argonne of r 
fensive. There we replenished our gas supply at a filling sta- 
tion and repair shop that our boys had improvised in the ruined 
walls of the cathedral. We passed many abandoned German 
camps evidencing the enemy thoroughness by splendid barracks 
built of concrete. We crossed to the east of the Meuse at Con- 
senvoye, followed the river road down to Verdun, and returned 
to Chaumont through Domremey, the birthplace of Joan of Arc, 
through Neufchateau, and other places of interest, but which will 
furnish backgrounds for stories of their own. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

THE CLOSING OF FORT PLESNOY SCHOOL 

First lieutenant o'brien was concededly proficient as an 
officer and instructor in the one-pound cannon, but he was not 
included among those who were promoted in November, 1918, 
for the reason, it was rumored, that he had gone A. W. O. L. to 
visit his French sweetheart; but as a majority of the 150 officer- 
instructors at Ft. Plesnoy were similarly smitten by reason of 
their zeal in learning the language of the country from individual 
instructresses, there was a feeling of sympathy and condolence, 
and when the colonel took O'Brien with him on a duty-tour to 
Paris and London everybody approved. All overseas men were 
eligible to a seven-day leave after four months of service if they 
could get it, and Lieutenant Widney took his to Nice and the 
Riviera, while Lieutenant Gaisser billeted himself in Langres and 
laid formal seige to the heart of his princess. All of the above 
was transpiring while I was entour of the old front immediately 
after the armistice and we all returned to duty at the fort at 
about the same time. 

The coloned and O'Brien brought back a valuable assortment 
of secret information, so they claimed, that they had gum-shoed 

282 



A DINNER WITH LT. WHIDNEY 




WE OFTEN WALKED TO ONE OP THE 

VILLAGES FOR OUR HEALTH AS AN 

ANTEDOTE TO CONFINEMENT IN THE 

DARK AND STUFFY OLD FORT 



out of the French and British military, and they desired to make 

report thereon to general headquarters, with copious illustrations 

that it was the art department's business to produce. 

Whidney made a quick trip to Paris for special material and 

the second night after his return asked me to walk out with him, 

which was nothing unusual. The colonel, in fact, urged us to go 

every day as an antedote to our confinement in the dark and 

stuffy old fort. We took 

the road toward Nuilly, 

passing several musketry 

platoons on their way in 

from the training fields. 

Our road wound gradually 

down the hill under bat- °££"" 

tery No. 2, and crossed a 

railroad in the valley where 

the gates were tended, as 

at every such crossing, by 

a family living in the 

stereotyped, two-story brick building. 

Instead of continuing to Nuilly we turned to the right and 
were on the highway toward Toul and Nancy, which followed 
the railroad to a station five kilometers by wagon-road from the 

fort. The single cafe and restaurant was full of Twenty-sixth 
Division soldiers, then billeted in our area, and French, but the 
landlady led us through the kitchen into a small dining-room 
which we had to ourselves, and soon a splendid dinner was being 
served in courses. 

"I brought you here to talk to you, Lieutenant. I don't know 
what to do," Whidney said as he lit a Fatima and replenished 
our glasses. 

"I've told you about the girl I've been going with at Langres. 
I've known her for some time- — before our school moved out here 
from Terraine Barracks in fact,— and I thought once that I 
couldn't be happy unless I married her, but when she told me 
she was engaged to a French officer who was at the front, I 
weaned myself and we've just been good friends with a perfect 
understanding since and now I don't know that I'd care to marry 
her at all." 

"Well, don't then — I see nothing in that to worry about." 
283 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

"Yes, but when I returned from my leave to Nice and didn't 
bring her anything she cried about it and said she hoped we'd 
been close enough friends that I'd have brought her a little 
something just to show that I thought about her while away." 

"That was thoughtless of you, Whidney. You knew these 
French people have the refinements of life worked out nicer 
than we, but she'll get over it, and set you down for the selfish, 
tactless American that you are." 

"But that isn't the worst," he continued. "When I was in 
Paris day before yesterday I saw a dandy bunch of violets. 
They cost a week's wages nearly, but I bought them and gave 
them to her to square myself." 

"Fine ! that's great, Whidney ! you've let her know that Amer- 
icans are not pikers." 

"Yes, but now she wants to give up her French fiance and 
marry me. What am I going to do about that?" 

Half of the men detailed to attend the Army Infantry Special- 
ists' School in that last term in December, 191 8, failed to report 
and Lieutenant Hann, the efficient detail officer, gave up in de- 
spair. As Christmas approached most of the instructors found 
themselves marking time until orders detailing them for duty 
elsewhere arrived. A wave of home-made vaudeville swept over 
the A. E. F. and all who had any gift as entertainers, or thought 
they had, began rehearsing and organizing troupes, which they 
hoped would be detailed to tour France and help in entertaining 
the millions of enlisted men who were waiting for ships to carry 
them home. 

Fort Plesnoy officers planned an all-star bill that was rich in 
original scenic effects in keeping with an Army Specialists School. 

Our talent gave the first performance on Christmas night in 
the Y. M. C. A. hut. Lieutenants Silverbrand and O'Brien pre- 
sented a tragedy-farce on Carranza's Army, in which threatened 
blood and gore turned to harmless water ; Whidney as lightning 
sketch artist, illustrated a doughboy's very proper letter home, 
with blackboard pictures of just the opposite to illustrate what 
actually happened ; Gaisser gave a monologue in humorous 
French-English of the functions of a liaison officer and a carrier 
pigeon ; Delano rendered a piccalo solo that met with as much 
appreciation as "Blackie" Daw's best ; Lieutenant Leonard B. 
Fowler sang and the show ended with a thrilling act in which a 

284 



FORT PLESNOY VAUDEVILLE 

profligate second son of English nobility conspired with three 
common sailor comrades to rob a Hindoo idol of its sacred jewel. 
The Indian priests followed them to London, mysteriously fer- 
reted them out of every hiding place, sought to regain the jewel, 
and were all killed in the scrimmage by the sailor crowd. Then 
the malignant god himself appeared, called each of the four out 
to their doom against any effort on their part to resist, and we 
heard the shrieks that told the finish of each "good and able 
seaman," including Toffy, the last and leader. The curtain 
went down with the jewel flashing on the forehead of the gigan- 
tic and horrible avenging god, and everybody voted that we had 
the best show in the whole A. E. F. without waiting to see any of 
the rival performances, none of which had come to our fort for the 
reason that there had not been time enough for them to get 
started and for the farther reason that our Y. M. C. A. building 
had just been completed. 

This was repeated at Terraine Barracks, and again at the 
Y. M. C. A. hut at Langres, where, at Whidney's urging, I rode 
over from the fort in an open and crowded truck against a raw 
wind, to pass judgment on the entertainment. 

I was favored before the performance with an introduction 
to the young French girl of whom Whidney had spoken. She 
was small, like most of her country-women, nice to look at, and 
helped to make the family living in a souvenir and post-card 
shop on Diderot street. I pronounced the show exceptionally 
good as a whole and complimented each individual performer 
and in turn was declared a gentleman and scholar and a fine 
judge of cognac. 

It was more than disagreeable riding a crowded truck, loaded 
with actors and stage property back to Ft. Plesnoy after mid- 
night, and on this trip Whidney added to a cold already bother- 
ing him ; he was far from well a few nights later when the per- 
formance was given at the Tank school. The weather on this 
night turned from a rain to a sleet so that the trucks were unable 
to negotiate the slippery hills, and from the exposure he de- 
veloped the "flu" and double pneumonia. The first time I called 
at the army hospital at Langres he appeared on the road to re- 
covery, but when I saw him a week later on my way to Nice 
where I too had a seven-day leave, he was unconscious and gasp- 
ing for air by the side of an open window. He did not die, but 

285 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 




MAIN STREET OF PLESNOY VILLAGE. 
NOTE THE MANURE PILES IN FRONT 
OF EACH HOUSE. THE VILLAGERS 
WATERED THEIR STOCK AND DIPPED 
THEIR OWN DRINKING WATER FROM 
THE TOWN TROUGH. NOTE THE FORT 
ON THE HILL 



was sent home as soon as he could stand the travel, and all I 
know further about his French sweetheart is from conjecture ; 

that she had something to 
do with a bunch of violets 
on the medicine-stand at 
the head of his bed at the 
time of my last visit. 

The Plesnoy stars gave 
one more performance — 
before general headquar- 
ters at Chaumont — and for 
some reason the fires of 
genius were smothered like 
as happened to many other 
would-be entertainers in the A. E. F. 

On Christmas day the quartermaster issued three boxes of 
chocolate candy to each of us and the knowledge of this got 
abroad among the children of the neighboring villages. I was at 
work in the afternoon at my quarters outside the fort; the door 
was open and I saw a group of youngsters of assorted sizes whis- 
pering together. Presently they filed in with a little tacker 
pushed to the front, who bashfully asked: 
"Chocolat, Messier?" 

"Oui petite," and I handed her one of my boxes. 
They thanked me in chorus, retired to divide, and a few mo- 
ments later filed in with many "tres beins" and "beaucoup 
mercies" and pleas for more that so flattered me to think I could 
understand them, that I contributed a second box. There seemed 
to be a larger crowd to divide with and they had the impudence 
to come back a third time and jolly me with their profuse thanks, 
appreciations and requests for more. I noticed the big girls put 
the little ones forward ; but they were all so polite and nice about 
it that they got my last box, but returned no more when I an- 
nounced emphatically "chocolat finir." 

My best Christmas gifts were a cablegram from home saying : 
"All well. Holiday greetings, Miami and Lucy," and one of the 
Red Cross boxes that they were permitted to send us. I had 
changed stations so often that my mail had for weeks been un- 
•able to catch up, so I did not know what was transpiring at home 
and can't but wonder how the Christmas box found me. 

286 



A WILL-'O-THE-WISP PROMOTION 

The day after Christmas an orderly presented a summons for 
a half-dozen officers to appear forthwith before the commandant. 
My name was on the list with Lieutenants O'Brien, Buchanan, 
Hann and others, and after we were lined up before Colonel 
Fulmer he handed each of us a recommendation for promotion, 
with the statement that they were not effective because of an 
order by the secretary of war against all A. E. F. promotions 
since the signing of the armistice. But he wanted to express his 
own appreciation and make the recommendations of record he 
said. It is hard to comment impassionately upon such a Will-'o- 
the-Wisp situation, and I shall content myself by presenting this 
unique Christmas gift in "words, letters and figures," as follows : 

"Army Infantry Specialists' School, 
"Army Schools, 

"A. E. F. 
"December 26, 191 8. 
"From : Director, Army Infantry Specialists' School, 
To : The Commanding General, American Expeditionary Forces. 
Subject: Promotion. 

"1 It is recommended that the following promotion be made 
a matter of record. 

"2. This officer has been on duty at these schools since 
spring, notwithstanding his great desire to join a combat division, 
and has performed important work in a very creditable, able, and 
loyal manner. The carrying out of the policy of uniform training 
with energy and initiative was so productive of splendid results 
that the promotion as indicated is strongly recommended. 

"3. This recommendation is made without favor, there exist- 
ing no business or family relations. 

"First Lieut. Joseph A. Minturn, Engineers, U. S. A., to grade 
of Captain. 

"I. J. FULMER, 
"Lieut. Colonel U. S. A." 

Perhaps I have said so much about the attractiveness of 
French girls that the reader may think I am partial to them, but 
I am not. American girls on duty in France were handicapped 
with the regulation uniforms of their service, which were de- 
signed for use as well as beauty, and were not always the most 
becoming attire, whereas the French feminines had no such limi- 
tations, and were notably adept in selecting and wearing their 
clothes. 

I had not particularly noticed the two women who had 
287 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

charge of the Y. M. C. A. work at our fort. They came and went 
in arctics and rain coats, ate at the staff table, and were but ordi- 
nary mortals in their regulation uniforms. But on New Year's 
eve the younger of the two came to dinner all in white and a 
hundred and fifty of her countrymen suddenly realized that she 
was a beautiful woman. Those who were familiar enough 
pressed forward to speak to her, and those who were not, circled 
around and told each other to look at that "dream" that "vision" 
that "angel in white." 

"Did you ever see anything so pretty?" Gaisser confided to 
me. "I'd like to hug her — I just can't resist a beautiful woman." 
And his artistic soul for a fleeting moment deserted its French 
shrine. 

"Come out of that," I insisted. "You're neither Turk nor 
Mormon. Learn to leave your heart where it belongs, like the 
rest of us married men do," at which he blushed and moth-like 
I moved closer to the burning flame. 

I had never spoken to the young lady, when a day or two 
after the above appearance in white, she singled me out and 
asked who I knew at Tuscola, 111. It developed that her home 
was at Newman in the same county. She was Miss Mclntire, 
and had seen the Tuscola post-mark on one of my letters in the 
incoming mail. Singular that she, Lieut. Charles Busey and I, 
all reared in the same neighborhood should come to a fort in 
eastern France to learn about our mutual existence. But poor 
Busey w r as the one instructor who went to the front from our 
school and was killed in action. 

On the morning of the sixth of January, Colonel Fulmer left 
for Chaumont and told me he would get orders there for Gaisser 
and me to follow him. He approved my application for a seven- 
day leave to Nice, beginning on January 8. Everybody was 
leaving and when the pass arrived from headquarters I planned 
to take my suitcase, locker and bed-roll to Langres and store 
them at the railway station to be picked up at the end of my 
leave. It appeared for a while that I would be detained at the 
fort for lack of transportation, but I luckily caught Lieutenant 
Stevens as he was starting for Chatillon with a load of ordnance 
and coaxed him to go out of his way and take me and my bag- 
gage to le gare de Langres. I didn't have time to sign out prop- 
erly at Fort Plesnoy, which accounts for- the alarm I found 

288 



DIJON 

Colonel Fulmer in when I met him at Chaumont on January 23. 
My leave was for seven days from January 8 and I had learned 
the custom of counting- the leave-days as exclusive of reasonable 
time for going and coming, besides, my pass was from Langres to 
Nice and back to Langres, not Chaumont, and it's a long way 
from Langres to Paris and thence to Nice and return, taking 
much time, as everybody knows, with war-train service. 



CHAPTER XXX II 

A SOLDIER'S VACATION, THE FRENCH ALPS 

Did you know that Mont Blanc, one of the high peaks of the 
Alps, the snow-capped summit of which is nearly three miles 
above sea level, is in France? I didn't either. P>ut it is. I dis- 
covered it. Indications pointed to a previous discovery by sev- 
eral hundred thousand people, but that does not detract from the 
genuineness of my exploit. A young R. T. O. (Railway Trans- 
portation Officer) at Dijon said he thought I could get into 
Switzerland at Geneva, and the inventions of so many of my 
clients had been anticipated by Swiss patents in my civil practice 
that I hold the ingenuity of the Swiss in high esteem and longed 
to get a peep at them in their native valleys where water-power is 
almost as cheap as their pure mountain air. So I acted on the 
suggestion of the R. T. O. and discovered Mont Blanc, just in- 
side of the boundary line between France and Switzerland, south- 
vest from Geneva. 

Dijon is the native town of the sculptor, F. Rude. Like all 
great Frenchmen he did his greatest work at Paris, but Dijon, 
outdoors has his charming children-and-frog fountain. It also 
has the poet, Piron, bust and fountain, and other fountains and 
statuary of note, besides a splendid art gallery, not only rich in 
Rude, but containing innumerable paintings by Dijon artists, all 
of which indicate an art-center here. There were two pictures 
by Rubens that I do recall, and a host more by others that are 
now only a hazy recollection. The gallery is in the old palace 
of the Duke of Burgundy, or whichever one of the Robber Ba- 
rons it was that rendezvoused in the Middle Ages in this town, 

280 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



and the guide was more insistent on showing us the ancient 
kitchen with its four mammoth fire-places, where were spits to 
roast an ox on, and the elaborate tombs the deceased erected for 
themselves in a chapel-annex, then he was in showing the paint- 
ings and statuary. 

I left Dijon at 2 p. m. for Geneva, via Macon, Bourges and 
one other now forgotten town, at all of which I had to change 
cars by under-track tunnel, or in a complication of traffic that I 
had to thank a young French woman for helping me through. 
The express from Paris to Lyons and the Mediterranean — I re- 
member the road because the seat-gimps, the arm-loops, and 
many other ornamental accessories repeated the initial letters in 
endless puzzles — were crowded with the soldiers of all Allied 
countries, and as many civilians as had the courage to push in. 
Three American non corns, in one compartment squeezed to- 
gether and let me wedge between them, and then we all squeezed 
some more to let a pretty French girl with ear-rolls, turban, fur 
collar, and up-to-date gear, in by my side. She was very proper 
and repellent when one of the non corns, tried to exercise his 
French for 1 her benefit. She passed up the cigarettes when they 
came to her, and seemed quite beyond all informal approach 
until one of our boys who was one of those favored mortals, a 

quartermaster sergeant, 
opened a can of Low- 
ney's chocolates and 
handed them around. 

Now, chocolates and 
all candies, had been 
scarce in our army and 
the French did not have 
any. These were nice 
ones ; more tempting 
than the apples of 
Eden, and Mme. Madeline, of 38 rue Central, Lyons, capitulated, 
became the life of our party, and when she learned that I was 
going to "Genev" was delighted (in French), because she was 
going there too, and would have the pleasure of "papa's'' com- 
pany. That is how I happened to have somebody's arm to hold in 
making the changes. 

It was raining outside and darkness coming on apace ; quite a 
rapid pace on the ninth of January. I really don't know what 

290 




MY LADY ESCORT 

I'd have done without her. True, she couldn't speak English, 
and I couldn't speak French, but she could talk her language 
like a whirl-wind, to the great satisfaction of both of us in mak- 
ing those bone-headed "frogs" around railroad stations under- 
stand. They always said "wee" to everything I asked them when 
traveling alone. She wore an American engineer's castle, which 
additionally pleased and assured both of us. 

Leaving Bourges we were in a compartment in which a 
French medical captain sat opposite, and with whom my com- 
panion entered into conversation. Finally the captain told me 
in very good English that the young lady informed him I was 
going to Geneva, and asked if I had a passport. When he learned 
that I had not, he assured me the regulations of neutrality were 
strictly enforced, and it would be impossible to pass the guards 
in my uniform, and if I did succeed I would quite surely be 
arrested later on. He had practiced medicine at one of the re- 
sorts where the guests were largely English and had been with 
the British army, which accounted for his proficiency in our 
language. After further talk with my chaperone he informed 
me that the young lady had a plan by which I could get into 
Switzerland, if at all — that she knew an American engineer cap- 
tain where she would stop for the night, who was in charge of 
a detail cutting fire-wood across the line, and would take me to 
him. He assured me that I was fortunate in being in such safe 
and resourceful hands as my young lady escort, and, changing 
cars at the next stop for Aix-le-Bain, the kindly captain passed 
out of my life. 

All this began to appear quite novel and thrilling and I tried 
to imagine what the sensation of a smuggler might be ; to feel my 
clothes for concealed diamonds or opium bricks, or to realize the 
sensations of a Chinaman trying to slip into the United States 
from Mexico or Canada like I was attempting to get into 
Switzerland. 

At the next change of cars the train was waiting. We climbed 
on the running-board, and through the side door into a third- 
class compartment crowded with soldiers. By some magic of 
forensic art my companion accomplished the unheard-of thing of 
causing two Frenchmen to stand and give up their seat in spite 
of profuse protests and "Mercis" from us. The soldiers seemed 
to be interested in us — a big American and a very little French 

291 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

woman. They engaged in a wordy exchange that was all blank 
to me, and the most I could do was to smile and act glad when- 
ever they did. My girl snuggled up to me like a daughter, patted 
my hand, pointed to our castle-insignias, smoothed my gray 
hair, and said a whole lot with her face turned up to mine to 
which I replied : 

"My dear child, I don't understand a word you've been say- 
ing to me, but you remind me of my own daughters, and I am 
leady to give you a fatherly kiss before all of these soldiers to 
let them know we don't give a bob for any of them." 

I detrained under orders from my petite commandant about 
two hours after dark. We hurried into a hotel near the station, 
where I was somewhat embarrassed by the fact that my guide 
embraced (he two women who seemed to be in charge, and my 
uncertainty as to whether I was to do everything she did. But 
the barrage stopped before I reached its cone of fire, and the 
only distinction accorded me was the privilege, soon after, of 
washing my hands in a pan at the kitchen sink. As usual this 
hotel had a nicely furnished private dining-room off from a pub- 
lic eating place, where diner pour deux was served on order of 
my generalissimo, and I had trouble afterward in keeping her 
from paying her half. 

After we had passed "foumage" I fished my Picart's Eng- 
lish-French dictionary from my musette bag and we talked as 
friends for an hour ; I turning to a word in English and permit- 
ting her to read the French for it; she replying by using the 
French end of the dictionary, and both of us laughing heartily 
at our blunders. She was traveling for a merchande de modes 
and offering the latest styles in chapeaux. The American, Cap- 
tain Spencer, roomed at this hotel and I could see him in the 
morning. Then she wrote her name and address for me, said 
"Adieu Chevalier," and she too passed out of my life like scores 
of other very delightful French people whom I cannot forget. 

I was up at a quarter of six the next morning on the theory 
that the early bird gets the worm ; in other words, that Captain 
Spencer might stand reveille at that regulation hour and then 
disappear. I shadowed his door until the chamber-maid put a 
pitcher of eau chaud outside and tapped on la porte at seven ; 
then after she had gone I also tapped like Ala Baba in the Forty 
Thieves, and was finally summoned in. The captain was in bed. 

292 



LA CLUSE AND VICINITY 



He listened to my story, then informed me that I was out of 
luck by nearly a week. He had broken camp in Switzerland 
under orders and the last truck-load from there was back. 

I found, when it grew light enough outside to read the signs, 
that I was at the town of La Cluse. As long as it was light 
enough to distinguish the scenery yesterday, we were passing 
through a country of hills and broad valleys similar to that around 
Langres, with much flooded low-land along the streams. But 
we had run into the mountains after dark and La Cluse was on a 
lake between high peaks that frowned so unexpectedly I almost 
forgot the disappointment of Captain Spencer's interview, and 
walking down into the town, which huddled together as if ifi 
fear of the overhanging rocks, came upon a cow market in a 
slight widening of the street which 1 suppose was the nearest ap- 
proach possible to a public square. Here were farmers dressed 
in the long black dusters that the French boys wear to keep their 
clothes clean,. each leading a cow or critically inspecting another 
man's. There were women too, and great gesticulation and 
noi$e for a while ; 
then the crowd 
broke and scattered 
in groups of which 
a cow was the cen- 
tral figure of each. 
There was no 
train out until late 
that afternoon, so 
I had time to ex- 
plore the lake 
which is evidently 
a summer resort. It is about three miles long and narrow, with 
shores as rugged as those of Lake George. A town is at the other 
end from La Cluse, and along each shore is a boulevard and walk 
with a stone ballustrade and convenient benches. 

I arrived at Bellegarde, a port of entry between France and 
Switzerland, after dark, and was so numerously and rigidly in- 
spected by heartless customs officers that hope of getting over 
the line into Switzerland grew smaller. I stopped here at 
Le Grande Hotel de la Poste, a favorite name apparently, and 
left at 6 a. m. by rail for Annamassa. the closest French point to 
Geneva, and with which it is connected by trolley. Here I hunted 

293 




THE COW MARKET AT LA CLUSE 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

up the trolley line, gave the guard a package of cigarettes while 
waiting, showed him my pass to Nice, which he only glanced at, 
and was aboard for Switzerland. But alas, I have found to my 
sorrow that they make their most rigid inspection when one tries 
to quit riding on their funny little cars in Europe. We passed 
the line — we were in Geneva, and as I stepped my foot on its 
sacred soil, my passport was demanded by a guard who spoke 
English. He examined my pass critically and said I was travel- 
ing in the wrong direction to get to Nice. I suggested, as there 
was no prescribed route, it was my desire to go by way of Swit- 
zerland and Italy. I slipped him a package of cigarettes which he 
took, but insisted that I would have to go with him to headquar- 
ters or take the next train back. He was polite but very firm, 
and I asked his permission to go back if he felt perfectly sat- 
isfied my pass to Nice was not good straight ahead. Back I 
\.ent and thus was the neutrality of Switzerland kept inviolate. 
'"What," I thought on my way back, "if France should refuse to 
let me in there without a passport. Would I be doomed forever 
to shuttle back and forth between Geneva and Annamassa?" 

But I soon had evidence that France welcomed the American 
and that her sons are truly our brothers. The guard who had 
looked me over first smiled his recognition and did not appear at 
all surprised to see me back so quickly. He passed me on with- 
out a challenge and very soon thereafter I was riding in a steam- 
driven car going in a southerly direction ; to' just where, I did not 
know or care. There were high mountains to our left with white 
tops and streaks of lower snow; but soon a fog blew over and 
shut out the view which gave me time to size up an odd little 
fellow in a big overcoat, with spats and monocle, sitting across 
the way. We were the only occupants of our compartment. I 
couldn't decide on his nationality, and to try him out in the only 
language I knew, I inquired : 

"Were you ever in Geneva, Sir?" 

"Ouah yaas — in fa-w-ct I'm just from th-a-ah," he drawled 
in real English. 

"How fortunate — I've just come from trying to get in, but 
the guard wouldn't let me ; and I'm very much disappointed." 

Then I drew out of him all about the beauty of the city on 
the lake ; that he was a Frenchman ; had traveled much, and had 
lived in London for many years. 

294 



THE CAPUCINS OF LA ROCHE 



"Owah, do-ah you-ah know-ah Lon-on" he inquired, and 
when I admitted that I had never been there he took pity on me 
a« a real tender-foot; made himself unusually agreeable and en- 
tertaining ; got out his railroad guides and time-tables and wrote 
cut a complete itinerary that was of the greatest value to me 
throughout the rest of the trip. He told me what there was to 
see, where to find it, and how to get there. To reach Mont 
Blanc, I must change at La Roche while this train we were on 
would take him in another direction to his destination at Annecy. 
He insisted on getting off with me at La Roche to show me a 
good restaurant he knew of, where I ate an excellent dinner be- 
fore my train left. We parted as brothers and I think the little 
men of France are just as fine as the little women. 

I had to wait two or three hours at La Roche and passed the 
time in looking it over and in trying to find why it was so named. 
It was walled about with high mountains where rock-a-plentv 
predominates ; but it is built around a little peak of its own, which 
the waters of time could not level off, a pinnacle of which is 
crowned with a ruined tower variously called the Tower of the 
Capucins, and the Tower of Augustus. I walked in a narrow 
little alley of a street around the perpendicular walls of this gi- 
gantic monolith 
to find a stairway 
and came bang 
into the iron gate 
of a monastery. 
History and tra- 
dition say that the 
founder of the 
capucins saw a 
vision of St tower op the capucins at la roche, francf 

Francis wearing a square-cut pyramidal hood and made one for 
himself, the wearing of which caused him to be blamed and per- 
secuted. This, of course, brought him followers like anything 
new in religion does in our day, and the "little hooded fellows," 
as their name means, went off to live like hermits in wild, deso- 
late places, to go barefoot and to wear beards. Many of them 
took refuge in Switzerland, of which this territory of La Roche 
was then a part. 

I met three American officers at the railway station, who 
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THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

were going my way, and joined their party. They were Major 
!'». Fredericks and his In-other, Captain A. Fredericks, of Nor- 
folk, Ya., and Lieutenant Van Etten, of Chicago. They had 
been to Nice on leave and were returning by the mountain route 
to Paris. Our road was up-grade through a valley lined with 
mountains that grew higher and came closer. The snow line 
kept moving down until its mantle of white covered over our 
level. The snow piles at the stations where we halted grew in 
depth from inches to feet, then knee-deep, waist-high and finally 
came up to the shoulders of the people outside, and within, the 
heatless third-class cars made us uncomfortable from the cold. 
The major and the captain disappeared hut at the end of an hour 
reappeared to say they had been riding on the engine, and ad- 
vised Van Etten and me to try it in order to warm ourselves and 
get the best view of the w r onderful scenery. We were not slow r 
in acting on the suggestion. The engineer, or "mechanician," as 
he called himself, was a good-natured Swiss and said he would 
drop the cars at St. Germain, where w^e would change to an 
electric road ; then he would run his engine into a round-house 
in Switzerland fur the night. 

The architecture hereabouts had changed to the Swiss chalet 
style of wide projecting roofs, open-ended gables and projecting 
upper stories with paneled walls, so familiar in theater-drops and 
chromes, and in unexpected places we ran into isolated factories 
that made an extensive showing, electrically illuminated as they 
were in the early gathering darkness of the valley. 

Chamonix. so named for the wild mountain sheep of the 
Alps, was our destination. A good view is said to be obtainable 
from the windows of the high-climbing cars that carried us ; but 
the trips up and down are made so late and early each way that 
one has not light enough at this time of year to see the scenerv. 

We stepped out of the station into real winter. Sleighs were 
there to meet the train, but we preferred to walk. The snow 
creaked at every step; the breath froze into a white mist, and we 
had to swing our arms and warm our ears early to keep from 
being frostbitten. 

The town is seemingly more compact than there is need for. 
The streets are narrow and the buildings which are all hotels are 
six and eight and ten stories high, in competition apparently with 
the Alps that tower above them. We'd been recommended to the 

296 



CLIMBING MOUNT BLANC 

Grand Hotel des Alps, and kept hunting until we found it. It 
was comfortable, even luxurious in our estimation, and the charge 
from Saturday supper to Monday, breakfast inclusive, was but 
forty francs for the four of us, including five francs for tips. 

Chamonix is at the foot of Mont Blanc between the Mur and 
Bosson glaciers. A cogged road in summer carries passengers 
to Hotel Montenvers, far up toward the source of that frozen 
river called Mur-de-glace, but now the road is snow-bound and 
the hotel is deserted. 

Nothing daunted, however, the four of us inquired if there 
were a guide in town who could show us the way. One was 
found in the person of Joseph Couttet, of the Alpine Chasseurs. 
He would take us up for three francs each, and we hired him ; 
also, we hired alpine stocks and ice-creepers. A mile up we 
threaded our way between the close houses of a typical Swiss 
village ; then we followed a trail left by a mule and sled after 
fire-wood, and beyond that the snow drifts were only broken by 
cross-tracks of the mountain sheep. 

We reached the jagged blocks of the Mur-de-glace. To our 
right so straight down that it gave one the cringy feeling of look- 
ing from the edge of the Woolworth building, was the valley and 
Chamonix like an ant-hill, while above us to the left, the perpen- 
dicular walls of Mont Blanc seemed to rise higher and steeper 
than before we started. Not being a human fly, I made excuse 
to sit on a bare rock to sketch, while the rest went on to their 
fuller satisfaction. But in less than an hour they came slipping 
and sliding back and we all returned with more speed and less 
safety than we came. I had thought of stopping at the Swiss 
village for a sketch, but we slid past it as fast as the Knicker- 
bocker Special to New York goes though the little towns enroute. 

I like good sport but don't think mountain climbing qualifies 
as such. When I play with Death as my opponent there must be 
more reward than the mere satisfaction of scaling a hazardous 
wall of rock and snow. The man who goes over Niagara in a 
barrel has his thrills and can afterwards exhibit himself if he lives, 
but there is not even demand in vaudeville for a mountain climber. 

At the edge of town a skieing carnival was being staged. The 
three others of our party had skied a little the night before and 
we all now went appropriately crazy with skie-enthusiasm. We 
wished some of those high- jumpers, who seemed unable to get 

297 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

enough, had been where we had just come from. We could safely 
give a written guarantee for thrills and distance enough from 
there. 

Came many ladies out in bloomers and knit pants, sweaters 
and prismatic colors, some skieing and more in handsome sleighs 
and all trimmed with gay ribbons and softly gingling bells. 

At night the major and his brother took part in a skating 
carnival, while I went shopping with Lieutenant Van Etten. The 
town had been almost deserted, but Chamonix was lately selected 
by our army as a leave-area for enlisted men, and ten thousand 
of them were expected within a week. We were the advance 
guard. The stores were full of pretty things, particularly Swiss, 
on which prices had not been much inflated. Among other pur- 
chases Van Etten decided on a work cabinet with a concealed 
music box that played a tune every time the lid was raised. He 
said that would encourage his wife to spend more time in darn- 
ing his socks. Then he became enamored of a clock, represent- 
ing an elaborate Swiss chalet, that played twelve different tunes ; 
one for each hour, so, if the "Marsellaise" woke him at six, 
Mendelssohn's "Spring Song" would soothe him back at seven, 
and "Where Do We Go From Here, Boys?" would mean that it 
was then 8 o'clock. 

The merchant permitted him to trade the work-box in, as 
the price of the clock was more than double, and we adjourned 
to the Hotel des Alps in triumph and to a rehearsal. By taking 
the pendulum off the clock would run down rapidly and play all 
the pieces in quick-time. I was sorry I didn't have one like it ; 
but Van Etten got all there was, and besides I couldn't very 
well carry a clock all over the Riviera to Paris, Langres, Chau- 
mont and the other points of France at the rate I'd been going. 

The next day we changed cars at Annecy and had an hour 
and a half between trains. This is a port of entry. We were all 
lined up for inspection by the customs officers and all got by 
except Van Etten, who was the fourth man. It was 12 noon 
and he was about to be passed when the clock started the 
"YVacht am Rhein." The whole show stopped right there. Van 
Etten couldn't explain and they dragged him out of line and 
into a private room. W r e lost nearly a half-hour on that music 
box, and Van Etten was out a stiff tip in squaring himself. 

298 



A STOP-OFF AT ANNECY 




FROM THE FOOT OF MUR GLACIER, HALF WAY 

UP MONT BLANC, I SKETCHED THE VALLEY AND 

CHAMON1X LIKE AN ANT HILL 



Then we rushed 
over to get a 
glimpse of An- 
necy Lake, the 
largest lake in 
France, and back 
through the ar- 
cades of Rue 
Saint Claire to 
a popular restau- 
rant where we de- 
posited seven 
francs each before we could seat ourselves for dinner. We tried 
to explain that we wanted everything brought in at once instead 
of in courses, because we were in a hurry. We waited until there 
was barely time left in which to make the train, when the waiter 
came with nothing but soup, and realizing that it was impossible 
to speed up the French at mealtime or to change them from their 
habit of serving food in courses, and also realizing that we were 
out-of-pocket seven francs each, we tossed a few choice English 
words to the head of the establishment and ran for the train. 

We were told that Annecy had been a concentration point for 
German prisoners to be exchanged through Switzerland, and 
was not opened to Americans until two or three weeks before we 
arrived ; that there were many historical and other worthwhile 
things to see, but, thanks to Van Etten's music box and French 
long-drawn-out meal service we didn't even get a glimpse of any 
of them except the curious monument to Eugene Sue, which we 
passed in going to the lake. 

This monument is as sensational as Sue's "Mysteries of 
Paris" and "The Wandering Jew." He died here in exile six 
years after the coup d'etat of 1851. 

I had to change again at Aix-les-Bain while the three others 
went on west. Here are hot sulphur springs that made Aix a 
famous bathing place in the time of the Romans, and has kept 
it so down until the interruption by the World war ; and now its 
magnificent casino and many of its palatial hotels are filled with 
recuperating American buck-privates. A Roman arch, badly dis- 
figured by the centuries, was a favorite lounging place for them, 
and numerous other ancient remains bear testimony to the long 

299 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

prominence of the place, which is one of the beauty spots of the 
world. 

The train was so crowded that I had to stand going from 
Aix-les-Bain to Chambrey, where the one to which I transferred 
was in waiting. I arrived after a long, cold journey consider- 
ably after dark at Grenoble, a city of seventy thousand inhab- 
itants, beautifully situated near the head of navigation on the 
river Rhone. Here the Dauphin created the parliament of Gre- 
noble in 1453, that did more than the king's army to quiet these 
restless and dissatisfied provinces so far from Paris. 

As I was having my pass stamped at the railway station three 
former sergeants of the Three Hundred and Ninth Engineers, 
who had transferred to Major Tanner's service-battalion and 
came to France before we did, called me to one side and renewed 
old acquaintance. They were on leave to Aix-les-Bain, but, like 
the rest of us, desiring to see more of France and particularly of 
the Mediterranean, were slipping through. I didn't handicap 
them in any way as they gratefully admitted, and because the 
train I wanted out of Grenoble departed at six in the morning I 
left them at the first hotel we came to. There I asked for ac- 
commodations for the night, but the clerk did not understand. 
He couldn't get by by saying "wee" because he knew I was or- 
dering something, so he did the next most obvious thing: brought 
me a bottle of wine and a glass. I don't know that I would have 
retired at all that night had not an elderly French gentleman 
who would have had to go a block away to keep from overhear- 
ing our conversation, intervened. He could talk English and 
soon had me climbing stairs to a shivery room on the fifth floor 
that cost nine francs. 

When the sun came up the next morning and blew his icy 
breath across the mountains he found me and another sorry- 
looking passenger in a railway compartment, moving rapidly 
along the sky-line and dancing to keep our feet from freezing. 
To our left the country spread out like a gigantic fluted bowl. 
We were circling its rim in the clouds where the eagles might 
soar if they could stand a temperature that frosted one of my 
feet. Within the bowl I counted nine towns ; all visible at one 
time, and as we curved about and shot through tunneled prom- 
ontories by which the bowl was fluted, the changes were 
grandly kaleidoscopic and picturesque. 

300 



I AM THE BIG SHOW AT VEYNES 

My next stop in this Alpine country was at a railway junc- 
tion near Veynes. The town is a mile away, where its crooked 
and narrow main street has been little trod by the American sol- 
dier, one would conclude from the curiosity my pilgrimage 
through it excited. The school children gaped and followed me 
in crowds until I realized how annoyed the elephant must feel in 
a circus-day parade. 

I took refuge in a restaurant and cafe where the bar-maid 
drove my tormenters out ; then brought me the customary good 
dinner in courses with a whole quart of vin rough — all for five 
francs. It was a queer place with low ceiling, walls frescoed 
with crude pictures of the sea, sawdust floors, and a mastiff that 
eyed my every mouthful and held his cavernous jaws open level 
with the top of the table ready for me to throw in the scraps. 

Several trains came in together at the junction when I left. 
and as mine was pulling out I caught a glimpse of my old Three 
Hundred and Ninth Engineer friend. Dr. Davis, on the rear 
platform of another train, but could not get his attention. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 



MARSEILLE AND NICE 



I detrained at Marseille near midnight. Marseille, the an- 
cient, the big, the beautiful, and also the wicked. A rival to 
Paris in many ways, and full of "wild women," so bad that they 
are said to carry skeleton keys and burglar's kits, by which to 
break in and rob American soldiers of their virtue. So bad that 
soldiers must not stop off except to change cars, and then only 
to take the next train out. One section of the city was particu- 
larly famed for practicing all of the iniquities of Sodom and 
Gomorrah, and there Uncle Sam's troops who successfully 
evaded the military police swarmed thickest ; hired guides that 
they might not miss any of the attractions, and paid out good 
money for a chance to peep through holes and cracks! While I 
was not exactly like the old maid who looked under the bed 

301 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

every night in hopes of finding a man, I was not particularly 
afraid of wild women, and decided to stay over a while too. 
There were no trains until morning; so I asked the American 
military police where I could find a reasonable hotel. This pre- 
caution was because rumor had it that not only were the women 
wild but the others were such Princes at profiteering that none 
but a Morgan or Rockefeller could stand their prices. The 
military police recommended the Hotel Splendide and turned me 
over to a little man, who would take me to it. Before register- 
ing I asked what my room would probably cost. "Thirty francs." 
the night clerk graciously replied, and I realized that one rumor 
at least was coming true. Deciding that thirty francs was too 
much for me to pay, I bowed out as graciously as a piker could, 
and only walked a block further to an army Red Cross Inn, 
where I slept on a cot for four francs and ate breakfast next 
morning for three more. As I was not advised that there was a 
Red Cross Inn, I am afraid that the particular guard who sent 
me to the Splendide either had a stand-in and was trying to work 
his country-men-at-arms, or meant to compliment me by assum- 
ing that six dollars was what a first lieutenant was in the habit 
of paying for a place in which to sleep. 

At breakfast I was agreeably surprised to meet Lieutenant 
Orinitz, who had come overseas with the Five Hundred and Fif- 
teenth Service battalion under Major Van Deventer. These offi- 
cers had been quartered with the Three Hundred and Ninth En- 
gineers at Camp Taylor while their battalion was forming. He 
said Major Van Deventer, who had jokingly issued us embossed 
membership cards to the Krockadero Club at Paris, where he said 
he would meet us if we ever got over, had been made a lieuten- 
ant-colonel, and was personnel officer at Engineers' Headquar- 
ters at Tours. With us at breakfast at Marseille was a Lieu- 
tenant Whitecotton, whose faculty of suggestion beat anything 
I know of in cubism and impressionist's art. He was always 
seeing faces, animals, birds, and everything but money in coffee- 
stains, water-splashes, dirty floors, and windows, and on the 
sight-seeing ride we took that day he repeatedly distracted us 
from things of real moment to look at a camel shaped by a mass 
of foliage ; a woman in the clouds, or the face of President Wil- 
son outlined in the horizon by the distant Alps. A man with his 

302 



SIGHTSEEING AT MARSEILLE 

happy faculty should get all the sights he needed without the 
bother and expense of travel. 

A half-dozen of us had paid the ten-francs charge apiece for 
a sight-seeing trip by automobile and were waiting for our turn. 
Discussion was on the points of interest, tradition, and history 
of the city when Lieutenant Whitecotton, who had been studying 
a muddy foot-print on the clean tile, exclaimed : 

"Excuse me for interrupting, but did any of you ever see a 
more perfect picture of Martha Washington?" 

We turned to admire, but to us it was but an offending blot, 
and the ever-present funny man of every crowd winked at me as 
he demanded : 

"What kind of an eye-opener did you take this morning, any- 
way, Lieutenant?" 

At last we were off with two more crowded in on boxes for 
seats. We saw the outside of St. Victor, the oldest church, built 
around a grotto that tradition says was inhabited by Lazarus, 
the brother of Mary and Martha, who was the first preacher 
here of Christianity to the Roman conquerors of the Greeks. 
The latter colonized and owned Marseille until Julius Csesar took 
it away from them in 49 B. C. Then it had the usual checkered 
experience with' the Visigoths, the Franks, the Arelate, and the 
Saracens, who destroyed it after the fall of Rome. We saw the 
Arch of Triumph ; drove down President Wilson street, and saw 
the statue to the memory of Bishop Belsunce, whose heroic 
work in the terrible plague of 1721 helped to save the city from 
destruction. This monument was near the two pillars of the 
temple of Diana, but our most impressive experience was at 
Notre Dame-de-la-Garde, a church at the top of a hill so high 
that we had to take the "ascenseurs" or elevator to get up. It 
has ever been a place of pilgrimage where the faithful did ample 
penance crawling up those awful heights. A modern church 
with a high belfry and Lequesne's gilded statue of the virgin, 
covers the old chapel, and within the church suspended by wires 
from its vaulted ceiling are scores of wooden ships which have 
been hung there as votive offerings from the sailor-men of Mar- 
seille who have known God mid the terrors of the relentless 
ocean, and have given this expression to their piety and thank- 
fulness. To many, these myriad ships sailing through airy space 

303 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

were humorous ; but to anyone who appreciates the sentiment 
and story back of them, they are serious. 

A splendid panorama is obtained from this hill which is a 
peninsula extending from a ring of hills that surround the city 
on three sides, while on the third is the sea with its three islands, 
and the shipping in it of one of the great commercial ports of the 
world. On one of the islands is the Chateau dTf, from the dun- 
geon of which Dumas allowed the Count of Monte Christo to 
escape by being cast into the sea in a sack as a dead prisoner. 

The group of us were surveying the circle of hills — 

"Those, I suppose, are the snow-capped peaks of the Alps," 
one of the party remarked. 

"Yes, and how plainly you can see Joan of Arc in robes of 
white, bearing aloft her banner and flaming sword, on her snow- 
white charger in yon aerie' dale!" exclaimed Lieutenant White- 
cotton in an ecstacy of emotion. 

"Avaunt ! my hearty," broke in our comedian, "That's neither 
the maid of Orleans nor an Ayerdale — it's nothing but a bank of 
snow you're looking at !" 

"Now you're both wrong;" insisted the practical Ornitz. 
"What you see is not snow ; what you call mountains are only 
high hills, too low here at sea-level to have snow on them in this 
climate — those white patches are the same out-cropping of white 
rock that shmv close here where you can easily tell it's not snow." 

Camp Covington, where four months later I spent a week 
waiting for a ship to carry me home, was across the city on the 
landside. I learned while at the camp that the irrigation ditches 
and means for flooding the fields so extensively practiced, had 
been in use for more than a thousand years and alone changed the 
vast arid slopes of that country into the orchards and gardens 
that appeared so attractive and natural as distantly viewed by our 
party from the hill of Notre Dame-de-la-Garde. 

A few minutes later we were looking out at sea — that gateway 
through the Suez to the Orient, southward to Africa and through 
Gibraltar to all the continent of America. We were being told 
that the Chateau d'lf was now in use as a prison for German 
officers, and a larger and bleaker island as a prison for common 
soldiers of the enemy, and were commenting on what barren 
rocks they were when Lieutenant Whitecotton exploded with : 

304 



A MILITARY FUNERAL AT MARSEILLE 




"Gentlemen, do look at the Goddess of Liberty beyond there 
in the sea ; the hand with the torch ; the head, the flowing robes, 
the pedestal, all 
there ; most per- 
fect, wonderful!" 
and he pointed to 
a column of 
smoke rising up 
from the funnels 
of a distant in- 
coming steamer. 

"The men of chateau dtp on one of the islands of 

, , MARSEILLE BAY. "DO SEE THE GODDESS OF 

vour company d liberty beyond there in the sea!" cried 

. T . lt. whitecotton 

mutiny. Lieuten- 
ant, if you tried to palm off that smoke of a steamer on them for 
the Miss Liberty of their dreams," remarked the funny man, at 
v/hich the rest of us smiled and turned to quit the place by what I 
suppose the French must consistently call the "decenseurs." 

After return and dismissal of our chauffeur we strolled into 
Cannebiere street (Can 'o beer, the Americans called it), and 
down to Vieux Pont at its foot to a restaurant, "column left," 
where we ordered a dinner of "bouillabaisse" that "combination 
of fish boiled in oil and white wine and seasoned with saffron, 
onions, bay, garlic, orange-juice, parsley and cloves," that all 
since the days of Thackeray, who have been to Marseille, must 
partake of. Mine wasn't extra, but perhaps that was the cook's 
day off, and the waiter prepared it — he looked capable of any- 
thing atrocious and appeared particularly cross because White- 
cotton called attention to a skull and crossbones on his soiled apron 
caused by long wear and too intimate acquaintance with smut and 
grease. Acting on the suggestion, one of our party dubbed him a 
pirate ; the funny man changed it to the Black Hand and Mafia, 
and the merriment at the waiter's expense continued until he ex- 
ploded in English with the retort that he "had supposed American 
officers were gentlemen !" 

We learned that the funeral procession of a dead French 
general was to pass through Cannebiere street, so hastened to 
find chairs under the awnings where we could sit and sip with 
the multitude and study the very cosmopolitan throng that was 
always passing. This street is so much the distinction and pride 

305 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

of the place that the Marseillens exult with each other and go so 
far as to say loud enough for Parisians to hear, "If Paris had a 
Cannebiere it would be a small Marseille." 

All manner of people passed in review ; Spaniards, Italians, 
Turks, Arabs, Africans, and many whom we could imagine be- 
longed to the blood-thirsty lower types of Marseille, whose an- 
cestors marched to Paris to help in the attack on the Tuilleries 
in the days of the French Revolution and popularized and named 
"the Marseillaise" by first using that Strausburg composition as 
their marching son ;. 

After while the guard of honor for the dead general passed. 
It was led by a French detachment of soldiers which was fol- 
lowed by one of P>ritish ; all fine fellows, but when our American 
boys swung into view there was a feeling of pride, by compari- 
son, in the breasts of each of us that would have expressed itself 
in appreciative applause in which the multitude would have joined 
I am sure had not the occasion forbidden it. Just as our thrill of 
exultation was at its highest Whitecotton demanded our attention 
to a picture of the ex-Kaiser wearing a plumed helmet and his 
distinctive mustache which he found in the damaged stucco under 
the second window of the third story of a building opposite. 

"Kaiser, nix," corrected our comedian, "you don't see 
straight, Whitecotton, that's the American spread eagle! What 
you call a plume is the eagle's head ; the helmet is the neck ; the 
Kaiser's face is the shield ; his shoulder-straps are its legs and 
those long stains on each side are its outstretched wings, I'm sur- 
prised at your lack of perception, Whitecotton !" 

"By jove — I see it too — I believe you're right," was the un- 
offended reply of one who would rather be right than president. 

I missed the fast train for Nice and had to take an accommo- 
dation at 4 p. m., which put me into Nice at 4 a. m., tired and 
sleepy. The night man at Hotel Atlantic gave me a ten-franc 
rate for a room, but the elaborately itemized bill presented next 
morning was for 13.50 franc?, which I refused to pay and finally 
settled at the contract price with an- added hotel tax of one franc. 

I secured very good accommodations at six francs per night 
for the rest of my stay in Nice ; took sittings for Friday with an 
automobile party going East from Nice to Monte Carlo, and into 
Italy for thirty-two francs, and another Saturday, west from 
Nice through Cannes to Grasse for forty francs. 

306 






THE CHILDREN WELCOME ME AT NICE 

My stroll down the "promenade des Anglais" of Nice which 
compared favor- r- 
ably with the J 
board-walk of 
Atlantic City, 
was greatly in- 
terrupted b y 
crowds of 
French children. 
They gathered 
like a pack of 
wolves at the 
cry of "Amer- 
icana" by the first lad who saw me and nearly tore me to pieces 
in their demands for "cigarettes," "cheming-gum," and "pen- 
nies.'* I was headed toward the beautiful casino, built out over 
the water on piles and now used as Y. M. C. A. rest and recrea- 
tion rooms exclusively for enlisted men. Then I was directed to 
an officers' Y. M. C. A., back in the town on a third floor, and 
while good and comfortable, not nearly so attractive as the other. 
1 note this because it has been said that the officers were favored 
over the men, which I have not found to be true. 




AX AMERICAN SOLDIER'S WET/'OJIE AT 
"PENNY! CIGARETTE! CHEWING-GUM! 



CHAPTER XXXIV 



IN THE RIVIERA 



Nice is full of prosperous-looking people and beggars. It 
has Chateau-Hill in the middle of the town, with an ancient 
cemetery half-way up the easy slope, and a cascade and most 
remarkable display of flowers and landscape gardening on the 
opposite nearly vertical side toward the heart of a city built for 
pleasure, and as attractive as the lay-out of a World's Fair at 
Chicago. 

At the Y. M. C. A. Officers' Club I met Major Tanner, who 
was on the look-out for me by reason of a report by the men of 
his detachment who met me at Grenoble. He had been to the 
Engineers Headquarters at Tours to learn when his battalion 
could go home, but Lieutenant Colonel Vandeventer in charge 

307 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT , 

there did not know because all engineer troops in France were 
being held awaiting decision as to whether the United States 
was to put the French roads in repair. He met Lieutenant Col- 
onel Elliott and Major Hess, of the Three Hundred and Ninth 
Engineers there on the same fruitless mission ; then extended his 
tour of duty some hundreds of miles to Nice for a few days more 
rest in this great war. 

The members of our first motor party, comprising one cap- 
tain, one first lieutenant, one second lieutenant, and two signal 
corps girls from St. Nazaire, met each other for the first time 
on the morning of January 17, 191 9, at the casino, and started 
for Monte Carlo and Mentone. The route going was close by 
the seashore on a road lined with elaborate villas vieing with one 
another in architecture and ornament. There were walls, tow- 
ers, minarets, elaborate iron fences and gateways ; pergolas, 
arches, flying buttresses and terraces crowded and garnished 
with vines, overtopping palms, orange and olive trees. Many 
of the trees were loaded with yellow oranges and the walls were 
moss-covered and festooned with ivy, roses and geraniums, the 
latter two in full bloom. The villas are resorts to attract the 
transient visitor and millions have been expended for generations 
to add artificial beauty to the great natural attractiveness of the 
high rock-bound shore of the blue Mediterranean. The innu- 
merable coves and bold projections add to the fascination as we 
explore their recesses or come perilously near falling into the 
white caps of the sea in rounding a promontory, unless we tun- 
nel through it to avoid the danger, as we frequently do. We 
pass Monaco where the palace of its prince is located, and hurry 
on to nearby Monte Carlo in order to glimpse the interior of the 
Casino before 9:30 a. m., when the gambling commences ; for sol- 
diers and sailors are prohibited from entering while the play is 
on. We arrive a little too soon — the attendants have not fin- 
ished covering the roulette tables from our view with the green 
shrouds that everywhere saved us from the corrupting influences 
when finally permitted to hurry through. At the suggestion of 
the master of ceremonies — from his uniform and decorations he 
must have been a full general — who bade us wait a little while, 
we occupied the interval in viewing the tapestries and interior 
elegance of an adjoining palace-cafe, which cost me five francs 

308 



THE CASINO AT MONTE CARLO 

to the uniformed bell-hop. We were afraid to order food or 
drink lest the cost too seriously imperil our exchequers. 

By this time we were permitted to follow a small army of 
mixed troops of all ranks and sexes which was herded and hur- 
ried through the princely gambling halls where thousands had 
tried to beat the game and had left their millions to keep up the 
magnificence of the place, and of those connected with it. We 
were permitted to stand in the music hall and to lift the curtains 
that protected the gilding and tapestries on ordinary occasions; 
but we were not admitted to the rooms above that were reached 
by halls and stairways rich in settings protected by covers which 
we were not allowed to raise. It was with evident relief that the 
polite but ever-watchful attendants dismissed us on the opposite 
or sea-side of the building from whence we entered. We drove 
from there to Monaco and the ancient palace of its Prince, the 
battlements of which are protected by obsolete cannon. Then 
we each paid a franc for admission to the museum and aquarium 
founded by the Prince of Monaco, father of the present holder 
of that title, and containing what was recommended to us as a 
remarkable collection of ocean products gathered without regard 
to expense by the founder whose hobby was oceanography. We 
are inclined to agree that the claims for this exhibit are not 
exaggerated. The Prince had his own steam yacht and every 
facility to work with, and on his voyages to the remotest parts 
took his artist along — Louis Tinayre — whose numerous paint- 
ings and wash drawings are an interesting part of the exhibit. 

We rode on through Mentone to the Italian line, where the 
machines were stopped and the dismounted passengers permitted 
to walk a half-mile into Italy on a road bounded by rocks moun- 
tain high on the left, and by the sea on the right. An American 
military police told us where to stop, and there Italian girls sold 
oranges and post-cards to the crowd. Many who bought the 
latter addressed them on the coping of the sea-wall and mailed 
them here in Italy to friends at home ; but I made a sketch in- 
stead and hurried back to find the rest of my party waiting for 
me. Then we drove back to Mentone and had dinner at a pleasant 
shore inn for ten francs each plus a bottle of wine. The recent 
occupants of our table in the crowded room left a half-bottle of 
vin rough which the captain hid and afterward divided among 
our party. We filled our glasses up with water, which the wine 

309 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



colored red, to the mystification of the waitress, who called the 
head waiter ; they discovered the empty bottle and charged us for 
a full quart. There was a long lobby here with a music room at 
the sea-end where the captain entertained us artistically at a piano 
while our party rested for an hour. 

Our way back to Nice lay along the mountains — high above 
the shore-road on which we had come. Here we had vast 
panoramic views of the coast and the sea beyond on the one 
hand, and of the snow-capped Alps on the other. The slopes on 
the sunny sides of the mountains below us were terraced every 
few feet with stone walls to provide narrow level strips that 
were planted to gardens. 

We passed through several mountain villages and dismounted 
at La Turbie to walk around the remains of the tower of Augus- 
tus on the Aurelian way, ending in a terrace that overhangs 
Monte Carlo. Part of the base and several columns of the tower 
are still standing, surrounded by fallen blocks of stone and nearly 
as ancient hovels inhabited by peasants, goats, and donkeys. An 
old woman came out of one in the shadow of the ruins of Impe- 
rial Rome and declared to one of our 
signal corps girls, who spoke French, 
that the Posch shot the Augustine 
monument down in 1870. Of course 
that was not true because the Ger- 
mans were not anywhere near La 
Turbie in 1870; but the way of the 
transgressor is hard and the Ger- 
mans must expect to bear the blame 
for all they did and much they did not 
do. Half of the streets of this lit- 
tle town are tunnels and stairways 
quite too crooked and narrow to 
drive a cart through even if level 
enough. They gave us a close-up 
idea though of the construction of 
the numerous little villages to be 
seen perched like eagles' nests on the mountain-tops of this coun- 
try, and reached by muleteer paths that suggest the kind of con- 
veyance which does thread their steep and tortuous streets. 

While waiting at Nice next morning for passengers enough 
to fill a car, one of the Y. M. C. A. officials described to us a 

310 




GATEWAY A XI' I >X 

MAIN STREETS 

TURBIE 



WE GO TO GRASSE 

storm of two weeks ago that dashed waves across the quay 
against the hotel on the other side and nearly raised the Casino 
off the piles that supported it over the water ; then he cautioned 
us to see to it that our chauffeur took us through the gorge in- 
stead of turning back, as many did, after we gave him his dinner 
at Pont de Loup. 

Nice was full of colored French soldiers from Algiers and 
the African colonies — the blackest of black men — without a trace 
of that white blood which corrupts the American negro and the 
absence of which here helped mightily to remove the question 
mark so commonly associated with French morals. These Afri- 
cans have been brought here to winter during the war because 
they could not stand the cold of the north of France. 

A few kilometers out from Nice we crossed the Var river, 
which was the eastern boundary line of France prior to i860, 
when Nice was an Italian city. Our driver was an Italian guide, 
who spoke English fluently and said he had owned a fine car 
before the war but it was requisitioned by the Government at 
half-price. I was interested to get his version of why Italy gave 
Nice and the surrounding country to France. He declared it 
was only put up as a pledge to secure a loan by Italy in her de- 
fense against Austrian invasion in 1859, an d tne French had 
unjustly retained it after the loan was paid. But Duruy, the 
French historian, says that but for Napoleon III leading his 
army into Italy and winning the battle of June 4, and of Sol- 
ferino, June 24, 1859, against Francis Joseph's army, Italy would 
have been reduced to a dependency of Austria ; that Savoy and 
Nice were ceded to Napoleon by the treaty of Turin, March 24, 
i860, as the price of the assistance he had given. So Nice is not 
a pawn, but was absolutely acquired, as this historian says, "not 
by force or surprises, but as a natural result of great services 
rendered to a friendly nation, by pacific agreement, and by a 
solemn vote on the part of the population of the departments in 
question." Perhaps our guide had been confused in his ideas of 
justice by America's failure to help herself to a slice of Europe 
"as a natural result of great services rendered to a friendly 
nation." 

At Golfe-Juan is a small cottage where the first Napoleon 
spent the night of the first of March, 181 5, after landing from 
the Island of Elba, and between that and Cannes is Yallauris, 

3ii 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

where are many Roman reminders and a ceramic pottery works 
with a well-stocked salesroom, and attendants that were hard to 
break away from without the purchase of some sort of vase or 
crock. But our strategy was too deep for them ; we broke 
through their lines and made a dash for Cannes, in the perfume 
district, and a resort extensively patronized by Queen Victoria 
and Edward VII, to whom the French have gratefully erected 
statutes. Near Cannes are the Lerins Islands, on the larger of 
which is a citadel with a dungeon in which the mysterious "Man 
of the Iron Mask" was confined. How much more real are the 
stories of history after one has visited the "exact spot" where it 
all is said to have happened. 

About Cannes and Grasse are the greatest flower garden 
areas in the world. The terraced farms instead of being planted 
to olives and garlic are laid out in countless rows of jasmine, 
migonette, tuberose, cassia, violet, and orange, for bloom, the 
flowers from which are used in supplying attars to the renowned 
perfume factories at the towns named. We were conducted 
through two of the laboratories at Grasse where we were treated 
to free smells' of all of the varieties of olfactory-ticklers known 
to man from pure essence to the bouquets. The French girl who 
guided us would shake the contents of the various demijohns of 
precious oils and let us smell the cork. Oh, the rapture of it ! 
Doctor Septimus Piesse has compared fragrance to music and 
runs the scale from sharp smells like santal corresponding with 
high notes, to heavy smells like camphor with low. Our guide 
did more — she played olfactory operas and sonatas from andante 
to quick finale in rondo with those corks and our noses. I asked 
her how they transferred the incomparable jasmine and the in- 
toxicating delicacy of the mignonette blooms to those bottles 
and was so persistent that she finally turned me over to the head 
chemist who was no cork-artist like herself, but gave me a story 
that I believe because I have since verified it in the Encyclopedia 
Brittanica. 

"Some perfumes," or attars as he called them, "are obtained 
by distilling the flowers or part of the plant with water, a few by 
squeezing in a hydraulic press, but the attars of certain flowers 
of which the jasmine is a good example because its peculiar odor 
has never been imitated by the chemist, can only be obtained by 
inflowering or absorption. That depends upon the remarkable 

312 



GATHERING PERFUME FROM FLOWERS 

property which fats and oils have of absorbing odors. The glass 
bottoms of wooden trays are spread over with refined lard a half 
inch thick and in ridges to increase the surface. These are 
sprinkled with freshly gathered flowers which are renewed every 
morning during the whole time — from July to the end of Octo- 
ber — that the plants remain in blossom ; the trays are piled in 
stacks to prevent evaporation of the aroma, and finally the pom- 
ade is scraped off the glass, melted at a low temperature and 
strained." 

He led us into a room stored with carefully covered slabs of 
lard which he said were very valuable because of the attars stored 
in them, and which would be extracted when needed by steeping 
the slabs in rectified spirits of wine. Jasmine, tuberose, mignon- 
ette, violet, cassia, and orange flower were among the odors that 
had to be secured by inflowering. 

At these factories we saw them making perfumed soap, oil 
cf almonds and face cream. We were supposed to purchase per- 
fume at the salesrooms where our tours ended, at the rate of five 
dollars the tablespoonful, and I believe all of us did. The fac- 
tories were on the hill-side so the entrances we drove up to were 
on the fourth floor. 

In the town of Grasse we visited a cathedral built in the 
thirteenth century. A Sister in white bonnet, and a crippled boy 
with a swollen jaw welcomed us and rolled up the curtains which 
covered three large paintings by Rubens, presented to the church 
in 1823— "Saint Helena at the Exaltation of the Holy Cross," 
"The Crowning with Thorns" and "The Crucifixion." These 
paintings were smoothly done and dark — just the opposite of 
the present vogue in art. The colors were not faded and the 
drapery and patterns were worked out in minute detail. On the 
opposite side of the church was a grotto representing the Child 
in the Manger. It was a veritable toy exhibition. The Christ- 
child was a big doll, three feet long, and a donkey the size of his 
foot, was eating hay by his side. Dozens of Wise Men, angels, 
people, camels, goats and a general collection of Noah's ark 
creatures were coming from all directions — down mountain 
paths and in the valleys, as well as through the air ; and in a cel- 
lar below the manger there was a flock of sheep two inches high. 
I saw a similar representation in the great Notre Dame Cathe- 
dral at Paris, later, but gotten up in better proportion and I pre- 

313 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

sume these were displays made last Christmas for the children. 

As we had been warned, the chauffeur after dinner at Pont 
de Loup, wanted to turn back without going through the gorge, 
or charge us thirty-two francs extra ; but when we told him we 
had been warned, he was deeply hurt, and said he would take us 
at his own expense for gasoline, but that we had been misin- 
formed. We let him take us, promising, however, to help him 
impeach the wicked Y. M. C. A. officer who had told us wrong 
if he wanted us to upon our return to Nice — but he proudly de- 
clined our offered help. 

The gorge is what its name implies — a deep canyon several 
hundred feet down and several miles long, between whose steep 
and rugged sides a turbulent stream monopolizes all the room in 
its frantic efforts to dash the channel deeper ; but pausing at 
places to spring at our roadway that men have chiseled in the 
solid rock above it, as if challenging that right of way. 

"It's some gorge and raging waters we might have missed," 
said one lieuey to anotber. 

"I'll say it is !" was the reply. 

On top of a very high mountain in sight of our dining-room 
at Pont de Loup, is the village of Gourdon, which some roman- 
cer in our party declared had been bought by an American au- 
thoress for $30,000. It commands a magnificent view of the sea 
and the Maritime Alps anyway. 

The ride back to Nice was on a high mountain road that gave 
us a splendid view of the coast and- villages below. The snow- 
capped Alps were off toward the interior and the blue Mediter- 
ranean in the opposite direction to the south. [The reader will 
note that when I do not say "Maritime Alps" I say "snow- 
capped." Unless you use a geographical adjective good form 
requires the use of "snow-capped" in mentioning the Alps, and 
"blue" always in speaking of the Mediterranean.] This region 
is not so lavishly improved as toward Monte Carlo, but shows 
the native country with its terraced gardens under intensive 
cultivation. 

I left Nice Sunday morning at seven, via the P. L. M. for 
Paris. My last impression was of pity for the palm trees and 
tropical foliage that were forced to bear false witness to the 
climate at this time of year. American and French soldiers 
so filled the aisles and every inch of space that I was afraid to 

314 



I SAT IN CLEMENCEAU'S SEAT 

leave my seat for even a moment. Otherwise I should have 
stepped off at Tarascon, a little beyond Marseille, to inquire 
about the health of Tartarin, chief of the cap-hunters ; to ask if 
his camel were there or at the zoo at Marseille, and what had 
been done with the skin of the blind lion? all so delightfully men- 
tioned in Alphonse Daudet's romance. I had a cramp in my 
legs when the train reached Paris Monday morning at nine, and 
a feeling of foreboding in my heart, because of repeated warn- 
ings from fellow-officers throughout my trip not to venture into 
Paris. General headquarters orders were out prohibiting it, I 
was told, because the Peace Conference crowds and all-Allied 
armies on leave, were over-congesting it. The story was that 
our military police would meet all trains and impound all offi- 
cers and men coming in without express authority, and to be 
impounded brought up visions of the dog-pound at Indianapolis 
where mongrel curs were starved and abused until the dog-killer 
came. Rumor said the latter's name was "Hard-boiled" Smith 
who'd treat 'em rough regardless of rank in Paris. But I de- 
cided to take the chance and as a result remained two days and a 
night in Paris without any trouble at all. Registered at the 
Hotel Richmond just in time to join an automobile party to the 
main points of the city ; sat in the seat of Clemenceau, in the 
Chamber of Deputies, which was not in session, and in the after- 
noon joined a walking party under a Y. M. C. A. guide to Ver- 
sailles via subway and trolley. Next day I saw the great pano- 
rama of the war at the Pantheon and was allowed behind the 
scenes where the artists were at work on celebrities, who gave 
sittings when they came to Paris, as they all do sooner or later, 
and then their likenesses are transferred to the big picture. 
I booked myself for Langres on train leaving Paris at 8:30 p. m. 
then walked around to look at the changes that had come over 
Paris since my first visit before the armistice. The sand-bags 
and all evidences of war were gone, except that captured enemy 
artillery of all kinds and sizes was parked by the tens of hun- 
dreds in the Place de la Concorde, and from there to the Arch 
of Napoleon on Champs d'Elysee. On the way to my train at 
7 p. m. at which hour it was dark save for the street lights, a 
French grisette took me by the elbow saying: 

"You go wiz me — I give you nice time." 

But my time in Paris had more than expired on this leave. 
315 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

1 was in Paris twice afterward, the last for several days, when I 
sat at the feet of the real Venus de Milo and other great art at 
the Louvre, and made the trip by boat of the entire Paris front 
of the Seine, which I regard as my most comprehensive and in- 
structive Parisian experience. I could fill a book with all of my 
incidents and impressions, but so much has been abler said by 
others who know this wonderful city better, that I shall shorten 
the story by referring the reader to them. 

I arrived at Langres station at 4:30 a. m. Wednesday, Jan- 
uary 22, and remembering my difficulty in getting a bed on re- 
turn from one of my trips at the front, I tried the casual barracks 
where I was the only guest and nearly froze. I reported from 
my leave at the Army School Headquarters where no questions 
were asked, and upon telephoning out to Fort Plesnoy I learned 
that orders had been there some time for me to report to G. 5 at 
C'haumont; that nobody knew where I was. That afternoon at 
Chaumont Colonel Fulmer greeted me with : 

"Where on earth have you been, Lieutenant? I've been try- 
ing to get you by wire everywhere I could think of." 

"On leave to Nice, that you signed for me at Plesnoy." 

"What made you stay so long? We need you. How did 
you square yourself with the School Headquarters at Langres?" 

"Why, I had a seven-day leave to Nice from there, beginning 
January 8, and it was only the 22nd when I reported back yes- 
terday. Major Ashley told me at Plesnoy that time going and 
coming wasn't counted against the days of a leave, and I'm well 
within the rule. That's why School Headquarters at Langres 
didn't say a word when I signed in, I suppose." 

"All right, then," was the colonel's answer. "You've always 
got an alibi, and if it was good at Langres it is good here. But 
we've rush orders to revise our Musketry Manual and there's 
lots of work for you to do." 



316 



G. H. Q., A. E. F., CHAUMONT 



CHAPTER XXXV 

CHAUMONT AND GENERAL HEADQUARTERS 

Chaumont, Haute Marne, as I have seen it from an aero- 
plane, is built on a spur that extends in the shape of a beaver's 
tail from a broad ridge or plateau. The railroad from Paris 
crosses a valley on a long high viaduct that is a celebrated work 
of engineering, and the railroad dismembers the tail by a deep cut 
over which the streets of Chaumont are bridged. My billet was 
on that side of the railroad-cut where the beaver's body would 
naturally be ; but my work was at general headquarters, on the 
tail-side of the railroad in the extensive French barracks near the 
end of the tail and nearly two miles from where I slept. The 
principal business section of the city extends from the railroad 
half-way to the barracks, the devious ways through which af- 
forded ample variety of interesting studies in architecture from 
the thirteenth century to the present, and compelled us to meet 
the people in their daily life and moods. Every two or three 
blocks appeared sign-boards saying : "Cave 50," "Cave 300," 
and the like, marking bomb-proof cellars where people to the 
number stated could take refuge during German aerial raids on 
the town. 

The guide books say Chaumont has a theater. It has. We 
passed it every day, and our engineers' mess made up parties reg- 
ularly to patronize it whenever there was a troupe of players in 
town. It was built before the first Empire, up a narrow street 
like an alley, and hasn't changed inside or out, or in the character 
of plays and acting in it since it was built. We couldn't under- 
stand a word, but felt well repaid by attending. 

Around the corner a jolly little dwarf sold newspapers and 
always saluted in military fashion. Then it was down hill for a 
block, a quick turn to the left and down further to a favorite 
corner for the town-crier, who blew his horn to summons the 
people — then read them the latest proclamation. Here we turned 

317 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

to the right and had to climb a steeper hill than we came down 
past a public collector of bad debts near whose place there was 
always a smell of limburger or worse, which Gaisser attributed 
to the condition of some of his bad accounts. 

At the top of this hill is the Chaumont cathedral. Saint Jean 
Baptiste of the thirteenth century, and one of the monuments of 
Prance. Out of our way to the left is the ancient castle-tower of 
the Counts of Champagne — in fact the surroundings here carry 
back for nearly a thousand years, and a by-pass to our right 
brings us to a modern building, in comparison, in which the 
treaty of 1814 was signed by England, Austria, Russia, and Prus- 
sia, in an alliance or League of Nations against Napoleon at a 
time when that gentleman was making a world-menace of him- 
self. The building is now used as an Army Officers' Club, for 
the upkeep of which we were regularly assessed by general head- 
quarters, whether we patronize it or not. 

Regardless of the way we go, past the cathedral or by taking 
the by-pass, we come out anyway at the museum opposite the 
narrow arched entrance to the "Street of the Three Kings;" 
then to the left we pass the "Lycee," and a block further on we 
must take the middle of the street to get around a line of women 
with pitchers and buckets waiting to be served at a milk store — 
the serving of milk in individual quart and pint bottles being ap- 
parently unknown in France. Always there was a great Dane 
dog in line, with a bucket in his mouth, waiting his turn. 

We pass the court house and community school, then go 
through the park and past the kid glove factory of international 
fame, the Officers' Y. M. C. A. hut, the army auditorium where 
the stamp of approval was sparingly applied to ambitious enter- 
tainers, and enter the avenue of the United States. At this 
point we almost invariably met a very small French woman push- 
ing a very large cart load of bread up a hill road that led to our 
nearest aviation field. 

The avenue of the United States does ample justice to its 
name. It extends along the middle and to the end of the beaver's 
tail and has a wide promenade and ample drive- ways on each 
side separated from it by grass-plots in which are splendid elms, 
whose branches meet and arch the way. The promenade afford- 
ed excellent opportunitv to study and practice the hand-salute, 

3i8 



EXTENSIVE BUILDINGS OCCUPIED 



and we all snapped to attention and held it when a certain limou- 
sine decorated by four white stars on a red field came along. 
Opposite the high iron gates and fence connecting the two guard- 
houses at the entrance to headquarters were the garages for the 




LA CASERNE DAMREMONT— USED AS GENERAL STAFF HEADQUARTERS. 
AT CHAUMONT. GEN. PERSHING'S OFFICE WAS IN THE MIDDLE BUILD- 
ING IN THE BACKGROUND. G. 5 OFFICES WERE ON THE 4TH FLOOR 
OF THE SAME BUILDING 

scores and hundreds of high-power cars for generals and col- 
onels ; medium ones for lieutenant colonels and majors, and Fords 
for the captains and lieutenants. These were used in preference 
to railroad trains for all of the extensive travel from here. 

Within the headquarters gates three four-story buildings of 
great length helped the high street-walls extending from the two 
guard-houses, to enclose a huge square for reviews and military 
formations, that was bordered by a double row of trees. There 
was a square pavilion under the trees near the middle building 
where famous generals and royal people exhibited themselves on 
occasion, and where "Pershing's Own" military band gave frequent 
concerts. Every morning there was formal guard-mount in this 
square led by a half -hundred buglers, and as many drummers, 
who electrified the air with their clarion notes, and dazzled the 
eyes of beholders with the quick flourishes of their polished 
bugles in excellent imitations of the French. 

General Pershing's private offices were on the second floor 
of the middle building back of the grand-stand. His particular 
den was lighted by two double French windows recessed by the 
thick walls of the building, and he sat at a sanitary desk between 

319 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

them with his back to the light. The floors were not carpeted, 
but a green rug of ample capacity spread in front of the desk 
where offenders brought before him on it would have the light 
from both windows full in their faces, while his would be in the 
shadow. I had opportunity to note that the green carpet was 
well worn, but the most tracks were from the desk to a huge map 
of Europe on rollers against the wall to his left, where the 
changes of battle-front were lined off with pins and tape, and 
where military positions were numerously marked. 




GENERAL PERSHING'S PRIVATE OFFICE AT G. H. Q., CHAUMONT, FRANCE. 
ONE HAD TO GO THROUGH TWO OTHER ROOMS TO REACH THIS ROOM. 



Back of the long buildings on each side of the square were 
other similar stone ones, but all quite inadequate to furnish 
enough office room for the big General Staff Organization of a 
great army, and the overflow was taken care of in acres of 
wooden structures in the neighborhood. 

One day while I was a member of general headquarters Gen- 
eral Pershing reviewed the organization, and he was surprised 
at the number of us, judging from the hesitant and embarrassed 
address he made. We filled the big parade ground and numbered 
well into the thousands. 

Such an organization had not previously existed in our army. 
There was not even a manual of instructions, and it all had to be 
worked out by selecting features from the French and P>ritish 

320 



DETAILS OF G. H. Q. ORGANIZATION 

general staffs and developing as our own needs and experience 
dictated. 

On General Pershing rested the responsibility of organizing 
and co-ordinating the gigantic efforts which our Nation was 
ready to put forth, and which was required to match the immense 
strength of the Central Powers at the time we entered the war. 
To him is due the credit for the intelligent direction of our 
country's efforts that followed his dictation. 

The five groups making up the General Staff were G. I, in 
charge of organization and equipment of troops, the replacement 
of those that became disabled, order of convoys overseas, and 
control of K. of C., Y. M. C. A. and other auxiliary welfare work; 
G. 2, censorship, enemy intelligence, gathering and distributing 
information necessary for the conduct of the war, preparation of 
maps, and the like ; G. 3, the development of war-strategy and 
plans, troop movements and maneuvers, and the supervision of 
combat operations ; G. 4, of co-ordinating supply, construction, 
transport arrangements for combat, and of the operations of the 
service of supply, of hospitals and movements of the sick and 
wounded, and G. 5, the department to which I was attacehd, had 
supervision over the various schools of the A. E. F., and general 
direction and co-ordination of army education and training. 

As the aeroplane was the eye of our army, so the General 
Staff was the brain. Each of the five sections had its head, who 
were assistants to a Chief of Staff — Major General James W. 
McAndrews after May, 1918, and took their orders immediately 
from General Pershing. These orders were detailed and ampli- 
fied by numerous subordinates, transcribed by thousands of 
field-clerks, and each order bore on its face that it was issued 
"By command of General Pershing." 

The general did not see the vast number of orders published 
over his name, so vast indeed that it required the efforts of sev- 
eral cylinder presses to print them ; but his was all the respon- 
sibility, and also the credit for an organization functioning as 
smoothly as this did, and those who failed to do what was ex- 
pected of them soon found themselves before the general on that 
green carpet. 

Several other presses in an up-to-date plant in the General 
Staff building were running off the latest dispatches by wire- 
less, courier, carrier pigeon, and all of the known means of 

321 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

communication, translated, edited, arranged, and delivered in 
confidential bulletins to our military "four hundred" so the 
General Staff of the A. E. F. was kept constantly advised of 
everything of importance transpiring throughout the world. We 
knew when and where the Liberty Loans were dragging at 
home; about the meatless, wheatless, and sugarless days; about 
the mailing of infernal machines to the high officials of our 
Government ; what Lenine and Trotzky were stirring up in 
Russia ; of Paderewski's and Poland's disappointment at the Peace 
Conference ; of President Wilson's appeal to Italy ; of Orlando's 
pique and withdrawal ; what Japan, Jerusalem or Caranza were 
agitating, and all of the other world incidents as soon as they 
happened. 

G. 5, Section occupied the fourth floor of the middle building 
above the offices of the commanding general. Brigadier-Gen- 
eral H. B. Fiske, chief of the section, was an able and tireless 
executive of the Colonel William Guthrie type ; he who sacri- 
ficed himself for the Three Hundred and Ninth Engineers. 
They both had the fear of God, and their superior officers in 
their hearts to which General Fiske added a fear of Mrs. Mary 
Roberts Rinehart and split infinitives. Queer what an influence 
Mrs. Rinehart had on our army. Hers was the last word on any 
subject. It was rumored that she had vigorously criticised a 
book because of its split infinitives and composition by Gen- 
eral Fiske. As a result he was over-cautious, and my immediate 
superiors. Colonels McNabb and Fulmer, found the general so 
critical about the text they wrote that they were afraid to ex- 
press themselves naturally and vigorously and roasted each other 
when their manuscripts came back blue-penciled. They got even 
by lambasting the field clerks who had transcribed and typed 
their dictation until those poor fellows almost jumped out of the 
iourth-story windows when the signal bell from our office rang. 
"It's Alkali Pete !" — their nickname for Colonel McNabb — 
they would say to each other with blanched faces. "He's threat- 
ened to kill me, already — you go !" and while they were hesitat- 
ing and urging each other, the colonel's wrath was increasing. 
But after he had blown off steam for a few minutes, he was 
normal and so human that even the field-clerks liked and ad- 
mired him. 

As previously stated in this history, Colonel McNabb was an 
322 



COLONELS McNABB AND FULMER 

authority on rifle and pistol practice and marksmanship, while 
Colonel Fulmer was the same on target designation, range-find- 
ing, control of fire by combat units, and that collective use of the 
rifle in war technically called musketry. Now their duties were 
to tell all they knew in manuals for the use of the army, and 
Gaisser and I worked like dick-nailers making pictures of what 
they found words inadequate to express. Their specialties inter- 
lapped so that they consulted each other constantly, and as often 
quarreled over minute shades of meaning. 

Fulmer's tendency was to assume some intelligence on the 
part of the soldier-student ; but McNabb's experience had taught 
him that the average person hadn't any, or was too careless to 
use it, and unless every detail was minutely explained the student 
with seeming joy would take advantage of the opportunity to go 
wrong. McNabb kept his Smith and Wesson revolver — he pre- 
ferred that to an automatic — in the drawer of his desk and sev- 
eral times a day took it out and practised the trigger-squeeze. 

■ "It's the trigger-squeeze that makes the marksman," was his 
insistence. His hand was too small for his thumb to reach the 
hammer in the first part of the operation of cocking the piece 
but he brought the hammer part way back by pressing the trig- 
ger as for automatic firing, and when the hammer came within 
reach finished cocking it with his thumb. 

We had an arsenal of small fire-arms; rifles of all nations, 
Mid some that had not been adopted by any. The inventors 
would submit them to our ordinance department and the latter 
would send them to our experts here for an opinion. One of 
these was a beautifully made Swiss rifle with some novel mech- 
anism that attracted much favorable comment from the numerous 
high officers, who called out of curiosity to see what was going 
on in our place. 

Colonel McNabb thought the Swiss gun a wonder for rapid 
fire. He said it would beat anything heard of where the marks- 
man was in a prone position, and to demonstrate this he flopped 
down on the office floor on his stomach and pulled the trigger 
while Colonel Fulmer held a stop-watch on him and I counted 
the number of shots he made per minute. It was dignity to the 
winds with Colonel McNabb when the demonstration of a theory 
or a principle was at stake. 

One day, about February 12, we watched twenty-two mem- 
323 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

bers of our General Staff, — generals (and colonels — their secre- 
taries), receive the decoration of the Order of Leopold from the 
Belgian government. The ceremony was on the parade ground 
in front of our building and reminded me of "officers front and 
center" in our regimental parades at Camp Sherman. 

Those to be decorated formed a line, marched to the front, 
and saluted the representatives of King Alfred; then the latter 
passed down the line, saluted each officer in turn, pinned on the 
decoration, saluted again, shook hands with the recipient, and 
then saluted him a third time. Colonel McNabb was standing 
at my side looking out of our fourth-story window and remarked 
before the ceremony began that he would give a hundred dol- 
lars to see the Belgians kiss General Fiske. It appears the French 
custom on similar occasions to kiss the recipient of the decora- 
tion on both cheeks — but the Belgians here only shook hands and 
saluted. 

Later the king and queen of Belgium were the guests of 
General Pershing, and inspected a part of our building, but were 
not Alpine-climbers enough to reach our floor, although frail 
and delicate looking French girls carried two buckets of coal at 
once up those four high flights of stairs daily to feed the stoves 
that kept the acres of offices warm. How they were able to do 
such things that I know our more vigorous girls at home would 
be ruined by, is a question. 

The royalty of Belgium reviewed us from the gaily-decorated 
band-stand, and a show of American horses followed that no 
doubt surprised me more than it did the king and queen, because 
I didn't know we had 'em in Europe ; whereas they were pre- 
pared to expect anything of the American army. After the 
show was over, I helped myself to a Belgian flag that floated 
over the royal pair and brought it home as a souvenir. 

About this time of 1919, General Pershing was away from 
Chaumont on occasions of ceremony with the Allies much of the 
time. Then came return entertainments at the beautiful Cha- 
teau Val Des Echoliers, about four miles out of Chaumont on 
the road to Langres, where the general was billeted. I spent 
a day there and can truly speak of its marble halls, for my chief 
recollection is of alabaster mantels, carved and generous, set in 
translucent walls merging into groined arches with which all of 
the ceilings were fashioned. 

324 



MEETING THE PRINCE OF WALES 

Generals Haig, Petain, Foch and others came, and oh the 
sixteenth of February, I had the pleasure of meeting- his Royal 
Highness, Edward, Prince of Wales. It had been rumored that 




THE MARBLE DINING ROOM AT CHATEAU VAL DES ECHOLIERS 

WHERE GENERAL PERSHING ENTERTAINED THE GREAT 

GENERALS AND RULERS OF THE WORLD 

he was to be the guest of General Pershing, and soon after I 
reached our offices that morning Colonel Wilson, secretary to 
our General Fiske, came in and announced : "The Prince of 
Wales will be in General Fiske's office in ten minutes ; he will 
be preceded by his orderly." In ten minutes I peeped out and 
saw General Fiske and Colonel Wilson waiting in the corridor 
for the guest, while the general's office across the hall was 
crowded with officers, and I was told to go on in. 

Presently the secretary signaled that the Prince was in sight, 
and we all came to attention and saluted as General Fiske ush- 
ered in a yellow-haired boy. He is said to be twenty-five years 
old, but doesn't look it. He is very blonde and pop-eyed, rather 
backward in demeanor, and I thought a little nervous and em- 
barrassed. His orderly was a big-nosed English nobleman with 
a recerding chin, resembling the pictures of a typical "Lord'' 
chewing the end of his walking-stick and saying: "It's bally 
rotten — don't chew know !" But the Prince decidedly took the 
fancy of us all, and I was quite pleased to be introduced and to 
shake hands with him. Colonel McNabb remarked later that he 
met him with the U. S. army of occupation at Coblentz, where, 
when he tried to dance, the young American officers kept 

325 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

"breaking in" and taking his girl away just to be able to boast 
that they had cut out the Prince of Wales. 

After the armistice, the matter of keeping our homesick sol- 
diers profitably employed until the ships could carry them home, 
was a difficult one, and the plan of sending them to schools for 
ether than military education was adopted. Many were sent to 
the universities and established schools of France and England, 
and thousands of Americans were offered three or four months' 
training abroad that they could not otherwise have obtained. I 
was anxious that Gaisser be sent to study art in Paris, and urged 
it with Colonel Fulmer, who readily acquiesced "when the book 
was done." A big rifle competition with problems in musketry 
was planned to be staged at Le Mans, and the work we were on 
must be distributed to our several armies in time for use in train- 
ing the teams. We were up to our ears on this when a letter 
came from Colonel Elliott, of the Three Hundred and Ninth 
Engineers, saying the regiment had been put in charge of im- 
portant work on the roads of France ; they wanted all the offi- 
cers back, and asked when I would return for duty. "Well, tell 
him you are needed here on more important work for the whole 
American army than patching the roads of France, and you'll 
not be back at all !" was Colonel Fulmer's curt instructions when 
I showed him the letter. At his own suggestion Colonel Ful- 
mer sent the following recommendation to the commander-in- 
chief under date of March n, 19 19: 

"1. The following promotion is recommended: 

First Lieut. Joseph A. Minturn, Engineers U. S. A., to the 
grade of captain." 

"A copy of recommendation made in December is attached 
hereto : 

"3. This officer has been on duty at these headquarters since 
January, engaged in the important duty of illustrating training 
bulletins." 

The very next morning he sent me down to section G. 2, 
'vhich did our lithographing, to look after our work, and the 
officer in charge there offered me a position at Paris with Mr. 
Hoover on the Peace Commission as artist. I was tempted to 
accept but that it would have kept me in France indefinitely 
when I had been promised an order sending me home April 1. I 
told Colonel Alexander, of G. 2, that I did not care to make a 

326 



OFFERED A POSITION WITH HOOVER 

change or go to Paris for that reason, and reported to Colonel 
Fulmer, in the presence of Lieutenant Gaisser, that I had just 
been offered another job, but had turned it down because I had 
his promise to go home on the first of April. 

Without saying anything to Colonel Fulmer, Gaisser went 
down to see Colonel Alexander a half-hour later, and in the 
meantime I was out on another errand. Upon my return Colonel 
Fulmer charged with : 

"Minturn, on your statement about a job in Paris, Lieutenant 
Gaisser went to see Colonel Alexander without my permission. 
Don't you know that none of you can take other employment 
without the consent of General Fiske of G. 5?" 

"But I didn't solicit the job, and didn't accept it when it was 
offered — I turned it down !" 

"Oh, but you got Gaisser started," and he seemed awfully 
provoked — right on top of that application for promotion too. 

Inasmuch as I had the ice broken and was apparently in for 
indefinite employment with the army anyway, I made bold to 
suggest that in all justice to Gaisser — a young man of great ar- 
tistic talent, who had grown up in the army in fact — it was as 
little as the army could do to send him to the great art schools 
of Paris while the opportunity offered; and if that were done I 
would remain as long as was necessary to finish the book. The 
colonel declared he intended to send Gaisser to school at Paris, 
and took him forthwith to the officer in charge to make the pre- 
liminary arrangements. 

Some time in April, following, Gaisser did go to Paris, and I 
received my promotion and started home in May. The world 
will join in saying that the colonel was all right, but that his two 
artists were a bit temperamental and hasty. 

On Washington's birthday all general headquarters and other 
American forces within a hundred miles of Bar-Sur-Aube, met 
there to witness the great football contest between the First and 
Third Armies. We found the streets of Bar-Sur-Aube lined with 
close rows of evergreens, reminding one of an unusually long 
display of Christmas trees for sale at home. They were the 
aftermath of decorations in honor of the Belgian king and queen 
who had recently been the honored guests at a game. The score 
today was a tie when a rain stopped it. We accommodated an 
officer by delivering him at his station at Chatillon, which sug- 

32/ 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

gested to Gaisser that he would like to visit his girl at Langres. 
The two colonels comprising the rest of our party said that was 
all right with them if Langres wasn't much out of the way. Now 
Bar-Sur-Aube is about forty miles west of Chaumont, while 
Langres is approximately as far in the opposite or eastern direc- 
tion, and our chauffeur came near "spilling the beans" about it, 
when Gaisser declaring he didn't seem to know the way took the 
wheel to show him. The result was that we swung half-way 
around a circle centering at Chaumont, rode well into the night 
before we reached Langres. and it was after midnight before the 
rest of us beside Gaisser, at Langres, were in our beds. But 
"everybody loves a lover," and the colonels took it good naturedly. 
Soon after that the young lady went to visit an uncle, seventy- 
five miles or more south of Chatillon, which reminded Gaisser 




THE CHATEAU YAL DES ECHOLIERS, NEAR CHAUMONT, FRANCE, 

OCCUPIED AS A BILLET BY THE COMMANDER OF THE AMERICAN 

EXPEDITIONARY FORCES 

that an officer stationed at Chatillon had borrowed one of our 
T-squares, or a triangle or something, and he got a travel-order 
including a chauffeur and automobile, to go after it. I think he 
had to make three separate trips before he was satisfied that the 
Government property could not be recovered. 

Just to illustrate how earnestly the American soldier in France 
endeavored to make the best of his surroundings and opportu- 
nities, Gaisser related upon his return from one of these trips 
that the uncle of his fiance, at whose house he stopped on the 
way to Chatillon, came in chuckling to himself fifteen minutes 

328 



A PERSONAL LETTER FROM GENERAL PERSHING 

after their arrival and deciared he had found the chauffeur kiss- 
ing the hired girl. Gaisser was properly indignant and was for 
immediately disciplining the fellow, but the uncle said: "No! 
they are both young and can only be young once," and took a 
position that completely tied Gaisser's hands in the matter. 



r*ersonal. 

AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES 
OFFICE OF THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 



April 6, 1919. 

Lieut. Joseph A. Minturn, 
G-5, G. H. Q. 

Dear Lieut. Minturn: 

Allow me to express my sin- 

oere thanks and appreciation for 

the charming "book of sketches of 

my office and the Chateau Val des 

Escholiers which you have made 

and presented to me. 

Sincerely yours, 



A^LQf^uUu^f 



FACSIMILIE OP A PERSONAL LETTER OP THANKS AND APPRECIA- 
TION FROM GENERAL PERSHING 

Gaisser had his young lady persuaded to marry him , only to 
find in France that the rest of the family had as much or more to 
329 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

say about it ; and after he had her folks lined up there were so 
many requirements of the law to be met, such as the production 
0/ strict documentary proof that he was born, and like matters 
of the highest importance, that he made a trip to Paris and paid 
a hundred francs to an expert to untangle the red tape for him. 
Finally the banns were published, and while he was waiting for 
his wedding day he was a hard man to hold. 

Lieutenant Brooks, of our mess, was engaged to marry a girl 
from Holland, and he and Gaisser spent hours together in praise 
meetings. 

"I tell you a French girl is the prettiest girl there is — such 
cheeks ! such soulful brown eyes ! ! such a waist ! ! ! and such an- 
kles ! ! ! !" and Gaisser's eyes would roll until they came near 
being permanently walled and crossed. 

"Ah, but such golden hair ! such heavenly blue eyes ! ! so rosy 
and plump all over ! ! ! such beautiful arms and legs and eye- 
lashes!!!! so amiable and so wise!!!!!" and Lieutenant Brooks 
neither crossed nor walled his eyes, but rolled them straight up 
in beatification. 

The two grooms-to-be planned to spend their honeymoons 
together in the Riviera — likewise all the money they had. But 
they didn't, because their brides had the last say, and they were 
both sensible. 

I must tell you more about our engineers' mess. It was in- 
tended to be exclusively for engineers, but wasn't, although it 
was necessarily limited to nine plates. Gaisser and I were not 
regularly taken into it, but, rather, we took it in. and Gaisser 
was such a mixer and all-around good fellow that they didn't 
have the heart to throw him out ; so we both staid and helped to 
turn down later applicants. 

Captain Poorman had been the ranking member so long 
that when Captain Mannear was promoted to a majority, the 
cook was so in the habit of taking orders from Poorman that we 
couldn't change her. Besides, Poorman had been a Purdue Uni- 
versity professor in civil life, and was a very positive man ; also 
a very well informed man, as was evidenced by the fact that he 
was the only one of our mess able to give the definition of the 
word "meticulous" without consulting the dictionary. His hobby 
was a slide-rule with more scales than a fish, that he had cut by 
hand, and consequently it was an instrument of great value if his 
time on it were figured at a captain's pay with commutation of 

330 



SOME OF MY MESSMATES 

quarters and overseas allowances added. 

Major Mannear and Captain Bruce had worked together 
until they were inseparable. Bruce got his commission because 
of his expert knowledge of forestry, having been a professor of 
that science in one of the great California universities. He was 
a captain of engineers. His part in the war was to mark the 
trees, pointed out to him by the State Forester of France, to be 
cut for firewood, while Mannear's job as a quartermaster offi- 
cer was to stand by as the tree fell and claim it as the property 
of the quartermaster corps ; much as Columbus and the early dis- 
coverers took formal possession of islands and continents. As 
he was promoted for gallantry in action I can see the doughty 
quartermaster-captain asserting the proprietorship of his corps 
on the Hindenburg Line as the trees come down by German shot 
and shell. 

Mannear and Bruce were ever contending over the ravishing 
beauty of the Georgian slaves; whether they were to be properly 
classed as Armenians, or were a distinct race of Southwest 
Russia that had lived in the shadow of Mt. Ararat since a son 
of Noah stepped out of the ark and became their ancestor. 
Bruce came home before I did, but I left Mannear in France 
insisting that he wanted to be sent to Russia to make the ac- 
quaintance of the Georgian slaves. 

There was another captain from G. 4, where Brooks worked, 
but he was away so much settling up French claims against our 
army that I have forgotten his name. 

The French citizens filed all manner of claims for damages. 
One in particular that I heard discussed was for two gallons of 
milk taken from a cow. The cow was in a barn accessible 
only through a window in the loft, and the owner declared that 
one of our colored soldiers got in that way and milked the cow 
"because no white man would have done such a trick." 

We had a daughter and her mother for our cooks, and together 
they furnished us with most excellent meals in the French way. 
Gaisser wanted hot cakes and gave them the recipe. The first 
lot came on the table looking like little muffins and so hard they 
had to be broken with a hammer; then he tried to tell the cooks 
how to fry them and the product came on as stringy wafers 
which we found were produced by stirring the batter with a fork 
in the pan ; finally the cooks were shown how by a personal dem- 
onstration, and they learned to make very good "crepes" indeed. 

33i 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



CHAPTER XXXVI 



A LOOK INTO GERMANY 



One night after dinner was over, after Gaisser and Brooks 
had sighed themselves silent and sleepy, after Lieutenant Land- 
man, our efficient mess officer, for the tenth time had reported 
the soldier-husband and relatives of the cook in the kitchen eating 
up our supplies, and after the head eunuch of the seraglio had 
consigned the Georgian slaves to the harem keep. Captain Bruce 
brought out a new meerschaum pipe with long briar stem and 
fancy tassel, which he proceeded to christen, remarking that he 
had bought it while in Germany the day before. 

"How did you get to 
Germany? You've just 
been to Italy on a vaca- 
tion !" we demanded. 

"As special courier to 
General Pershing," he 
declared ; but finally 
told how officers were 
sent every night with 
army orders and the 
mail, for which service 
he had volunteered for 
the sake of the trip. 

Colonel Fulmer had 
promised to take me 
along on a tour of the 
Army of Occupation, 
and I was disappointed 
that he went while I 
was at Chateau-Thierry. 
This might be an oppor- 
tunity to go anyway, I 
thought. Upon investigation it developed that most any officer 
could make the trip whose, superior would spare him for a day, 

332 




GENERAL, FOCH AND GENERAL PERSHING 

AT CHATEAU VAL DES ECHOLIERS, NEAR 

CHAUMONT 



A TRIP INTO GERMANY 

and who was willing to ride in an automobile all night going, 
and all the next night coming back. 

The route was through Toul, which I had visited before, and 
Metz, the capital of Lorrain, famed as one of the strongest for- 
tified cities of Europe. Metz had resisted the siege by the armies 
cf Charles V. of Germany in 1552, when that monarch under- 
took to regain the province lost to him the year before by treach- 
ery, according to his version, or by strategy according to the 
French. Previous to 1870, when the fortress of Metz, after a 
siege of ten weeks, capitulated to the Germans without a shot 
being fired, it had never succumbed to an enemy. Since 1870 
Germany spared neither time nor money to make Metz and 
Strasburg the two great bulwarks of her western frontier, and 
but for the armistice it would have been besieged and taken by 
the Allies with the aid of our American army. 

My orders were to proceed to Treves, a city which claims to 
be the oldest town in Germany, and to contain more important 
Poman remains than any other place in northern Europe. 

Captain Bruce said he could have made the trip on to Cob- 
lentz and the Rhine if he had been able to pass the military 
police at the railway station, and I made up my mind I would 
fmd some way to follow the beautiful Moselle sixty miles further 
from Treves to the Rhine. 

When the formal order came it read as follows : 

General Headquarters American Expeditionary Forces. 
Special order No. 92 France, April 2, 1919. 

Extract. 

Paragraph 52, First Lieutenant J. A. Minturn, Corps of En- 
gineers, will proceed from these headquarters to Treves, Germany, 
on courier duty, upon completion of which he will return to these 
headquarters. 

Travel by automobile is authorized. 
The travel directed is necessary in the military service. 
***** 

Official. By Command of General Pershing. 

Robert C. Davis, James W. McAndrew, 

Adjutant General. Chief of Staff. 

I showed this to Colonel Fulmer in the presence of Lieuten- 
ant Colonel Flohl, our G. 5, aviation expert. 

"Oh," he declared, "that puts you on duty officially with the 
333 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Army of Occupation and will entitle you to whatever decorations 
and medals that service brings to its participants." 

I knew it entitled me to travel-pay of four cents a mile for 
four hundred miles, and I have also preserved the original to 
claim any decoration or medals that might be released, but up to 
the time of writing this there hasn't been any to my knowledge. 

We had a Dodge car with Rex-Sedan top, and the two sol- 
dier-chauffeurs on the front seat, who took turns at the wheel, 
made a better average than twenty-five miles an hour for eight 
hours. I was on the rear seat with the bag of mail I had signed 
tor at my feet, and shared the accommodations with a Colonel 
Palmer, who was hurrying back to his regiment at Coblentz, 
with travel-orders taking him at once to America, where a cable- 
gram said his daughter was critically ill. 

P>\ special favor we officers were permitted to buy dough- 
nuts and coffee at a Red Cross hut at Toul, which was crowded 
with enlisted men under travel-orders ; later we wound through 
the quaint and irregular town of Metz, under the castellated 
Porte d'Allemagne which still bears traces of the siege of Charles 
V. through a naturally fertile, but now war-scourged region 
which must have been worse in Charles' time. 

"Whatever direction one looked.*' says the historian after that 
siege, "one saw nothing but dead soldiers or those who had a 
little life left in them lying in heaps of dung: or others seated on 
i;reat stones, their limbs frostbitten to the knees, unable to rise 
and crying out for mercy , for some one to put them out of their 
misery." 

The horrors of war have not abated much. On each side of 
every town, we were halted by armed guards who demanded to 
see our travel-orders, and at the German line the road was barri- 
caded with a pole that stopped us until a French patrol were 
fully satisfied. We were too tired and sleepy when we arrived 
at Treves at 5 a. m. to care for the Roman amphitheater, even if 
Constantine did butcher several thousand prisoners of war in it 
for the public amusement, or to care for antiquities of any kind, 
including the "holy coat of Treves." All we asked for was a 
hotel and a bed. 

Many times in the army we had sung of the castle we intended 
to occupy on the river Rhine, of hanging our pants on the Hin- 
denburg line, and of a German butler at the door, etc., but I was 

334 



TREVES, GERMANY 



taken aback somewhat when our chauffeur after delivering our 
mail-bag, delivered us at a swell-looking place to which we were 
admitted by that German butler in all his livery, and who con- 
ducted us over velvet carpets to splendidly furnished separate 
rooms* with delightfully clean and ample linen on beds even 
softer than those of France. 

"This," I thought, "will set me back at least ten dollars ; but 
who cares- — ask me — I don't," and was quickly asleep but only 
after instructions to his highness the butler to call me at 7 130 in 
time for the early train to Coblentz. 

The next morning after breakfast of coffee, bacon, eggs, and 
hot cakes, I called for my bill. It was three francs. 

"You've overlooked that I occupied a room here," I timidly 
explained. 

"Oh, there's no charge for that. The American army has 
requisitioned this hotel, and officers are billeted here free. The 
commissary only charges cost for what you eat." 

Well, I soon found that the American army helped itself to 
the best there was in Germany. Also that there was none better 
to be had anvwhere else in the world. 




GENERAL PERSHING INSPECTING THE ENGINEERS' MOBILE ENGRAV- 
ING AND PRINTING PLANT, PARKED IN THE AVENUE OP THE 
UNITED STATES IN FRONT OP G. H. Q., CHAUMONT 

According to medieval story Treves was founded 1,300 years 
before the she-wolf suckled the founders of Rome. Certain it 
was, very visible evidence of ancient Roman occupancy of this 
place reared itself conspicuously directly across the street from 

335 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

my hotel, in the huge fortified gateway known as the Porta 
Nigra, over a hundred feet long and nearly as high, and in very 
good state of preservation considering that it was built about 
the beginning of the Christian era. 

Colonel Palmer was my savior and friend in passing the 
guard at the railroad station. I had observed that a colonel's 
5-ilver eagle exempted him from rigid inquiry as to his right to 
pass the guards, so I kept close at his heels. The guard let him 
by with a salute and was about to inspect a paper that I fore- 
flushed on him, when the colonel saved the day by saying: "The 
h'eutenant is with me/' 

An important line in the history of Metz, of Treves, and of all 
these ancient towns in this part of Europe, is that their inhab- 
itants were massacred and their houses completely destroyed by 
Atilla the Hun. What a fierce creature that Atilla was whom 
the Kaiser set before his troops as a model ! And Atilla's sol- 
diers were not at all lazy to do all of the demolition-work 
charged to them without T. N. T., or even gun-power to aid 
them. Their engineers must have been as resourceful and as 
hard worked as ours. No wonder that the robber-barons who 
came into power later picked out the highest and most inacces- 
sible peaks to build their castles on after that visit of Atilla. 
Now, however, their castles are only interesting ruins to be 
pointed at as we swing past them in comfortable steam-cars that 
follow the windings of the Moselle, — a river as beautiful as the 
Rhine. 

The hills grew higher and steeper until the women and girls 
carrying buckets of water, fertilizer, or whatever there was in 
them, to the vines on sky-line terraces, appeared to be climbing 
ladders. Everything was clean and in order. No moss grew on 
the walls and roofs of the pretty and innumerable spotless towns, 
as it did in France ; but they shone in bright yellows and reds like 
scoured crocks. The buildings, the gardens, and the walls with 
oramental gates, were all so well kept up that there were no 
ravages of war, and the ravages of time were scarcely to be 
seen. Here was a complete change of atmosphere — the electri- 
fication of life and vigor — that told even the wayfaring man 
why Germany had been so able to astonish the world. Coming 
out of battle-scarred France into this, can it be wondered at that 
our soldiers were delighted and easily convinced at first that 

336 



COBLENTZ AND EHRENBREITSTEIN 

German "Kultur" deserved to win? But later came the realiza- 
tion that this was the fruit of that pillage of France which was 
the Modern Hun's first step toward looting the world. 

It was at Coblentz that the three sons of Charlemagne met in 
843 and divided the empire, left them by their father, into France, 
Germany, and Italy. This part has been German territory 
mostly since. The French had it in the time of Napoleon, the 
Russians took it from Napoleon in 1814, and it was assigned to 
Prussia by the Vienna Congress. 

Coblentz is an extensively fortified triangle in the point be- 
tween the two rivers, and is connected by a bridge of boats with 
the great fortress of Ehrenbreitstein on the other side of the 
Rhine, where now the stars and stripes were flying above the 
fortress, as well as from an observation-balloon anchored near 
the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle. 

While with the engineers at Camp Sherman I had much prac- 
tice with "balk" and "chess" and pontoon bridge-building for 
temporary use, but here at Coblentz was a permanent pontoon 
bridge across the Rhine that had been nothing else for genera- 
tions. Sections of it had boats with power-driven propellers by 
which these sections were regularly swung at right angles to 
the main structure to form an opening for the passage of river 
traffic. As a result there was alternate congestion of pedestrains 
and vehicles halted by the gap when the bridge was open, and of 
freight boats, tugs and barges when the gap was closed. 

The bridge opened and one of these human jams formed 
around me while sketching Fortress Ehrenbreitstein and I had 
fin excellent opportunity to study the people who gathered. 

"Vas der offiseer bleased mit our vort?" asked a voice at my 
shoulder. 

"Yes — particularly with the American flag flying over it," 
and turning to see a German soldier in half-citizen's clothes, I 
added : "Don't you like it ?" 

"Yaw — sehr goot. Ich bin vrom Chicago und vas meinself 
some American." 

Then he told me he had lived ten years in the states before 
the war started. His wife and children were there now. He 
was a German reservist and went back to fight for the Father- 
land before the United States declared war. 

"I vouldn't ov done it already oder I know den vat now iss." 
337 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

"When are you going back home?" I inquired. 

"Ach, Gott mit Himmel ! Ich kenna nicht. Ich bin sehr 
krank zu heim gahen." Then pleadingly looking at the red, 
white and blue circle on my coat-sleeve recognized in all Europe 
as the insignia of our general headquarters : 

"Blease, Mr. Officer, vil you nod pe mein freund und help me 
i,ee mein frau und kinder? Ach, mein kleine leiblich kinder." 

We had quite a talk together until I had to go — in which he 
stated, on account of the censorship against Germany, he had not 
heard from his wife and family for nearly two years. He inquired 
how bad the "flu" had been in the states, and wondered if his 
people there were alive. As to Germany, she was sore at America 
for getting into the war against them, and her people were dis- 
appointed that the war had failed this time, but had faith yet in 
German superiority and future success. They boasted that their 
valor had kept their own land free from invasion, and were now 




GERMAN FORTRESS EHRENRREITSTEIN, ACROSS THE RHINE FROM 

COBLENTZ, OVER WHICH THE STARS AND STRIPES WERE FLYING. 

"VAS DER OFFISEER BLEASED MIT OUR VORT ?" ASKED A VOICE AT MY 

SHOULDER 

turning to Russia and the East with propaganda and intrigue. 
Germany, he could not keep from boasting in spite of his family 
ties in America, will control Russia and then let the world look 
out! 

338 



GERMANS MORE LIKE HOME FOLKS 

"How about Lenine and Trotzky, Bolshevism and Sovietism?" 
I asked. 

"Raus mit 'em vor fools und tools like Kaminski vas, ven Ger- 
many gets done mit 'em !" was his answer. 

Just then a couple of plump madchens nearly pushed us over 
to get by, and in the conversation between them one emitted a 
"Y-A-W" to rhyme with ratv, so coarse that it jarred in compari- 
son with the sound of our "yes" or the French "Wie, ,wie," and 
clinched the suspicion that there was something inherently harsh 
in Germany. 

What surprised me here was to see the ease with which I 
could understand these people, and make myself understood by 
them. The surroundings seemed more familiar and homelike 
than in France. This was the testimony of our army generally, 
and shows how nearly were Germanized. The German language 
taught in most of our public schools, the numerous musical, ath- 
letic, and social German societies, German population and commu- 
nities among us in America, all retaining the thought and cus T 
toms of the fatherland, had brought us in closer touch with Ger- 
many than with any other non-English speaking people. 

The wonder is that our Nation was able to see the right side 
and take it in this war, and that our soldiers in the Army of 
Occupation were able after the first few weeks to make the same 
correct estimate of the situation. The German people did not look 
ragged or starved to me. Our soldiers played with the children, 
and flirted with the girls, or did chores for the haus-fraus the 
same as in France, and were as cordially received to all appear- 
ances. But we all agreed then that Germany was only tempora- 
rily checked — not conquered. The smartest thing she did was to 
give up when she did on the theory that "He who fights and runs 
away, will live to fight another day." 

Those who have seen France and Germany since the World 
war will not blame France for being afraid. She has cause to 
be afraid of that people. 



339 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

BILLETING AT CHAUMONT, AND A REQUEST FROM COMPANY F. 

Mme. chenolt lived in a stone cottage with shed roof like 
that of the house where Joan of Arc was born. It was against 
the right wall of her garden as one entered. The garden was 
enclosed on the two street sides at the corner of a block by a stone 
wall far too high for pedestrians to look over, and on the fourth 
or side opposite the elaborate iron gate, her married daughter and 
son-in-law lived in a more pretentious stone house of two stories. 
She had a little grandchild, Julie, whose English was limited to 
the word "good-by" which she greeted me with and kept repeat- 
ing at intervals until it was appropriate. I won the grandchild 
with candy from our quartermaster's store, and incidentally the 
mother and grandmother. The last two showed their regard in 
many ways, but their ideas of the acme of the American soldier's 
cravings was for doughnuts and pie. Perhaps Jaques Chenolt, 
a red-whiskered soldier-son and brother, just back from the war. 
told them that, and Jacque's mother was so proud of him that she 
believed everything he said. 

By taking plenty of time to il 1 could work out a note to 
them in French, by the aid of my polyglot dictionary, that they 
understood, and they tried to reply in French, but used so many 
shades and refinements of grammar not in my book, that I gen- 
erally had to call on Gaisser to translate for me. One in partic- 
ular kept me guessing all evening and as near as I could make it 
out, the women were saying [ would be sick (malad) if I didn't 
do something, and I decided it must be if I didn't buy some more 
fire-wood for the grate in my room. 

To make sure, however, [ showed the note to Gaisser, who 
said I'd guessed wrong. It was the old lady who was sick and the 
doctor had prescribed a liberal diet of prunes which she could not 
get at the French stores, and would I be so kind as to buy them 
for her at the U. S. quartermaster ? So I bought her prunes ; also 

34° 



INVITED TO CONTRIBUTE TO HISTORY OF F. CO. 

sugar, rice, soap, coal-oil, and many other things that were very 
scarce and high then in France, with the result that my home- 
coming was very often greeted with a plate of doughnuts or pie. 

One of the perquisites of the landladies where we were bil- 
leted at Chaumont was pay for shining the puttees and shoes of 
their officer-boarders ; and this was charged on the bill whether 
we accepted the service or not. In spite of the interminable 
"pluey" as she called it, and mud, Mme. Chenolt kept me shined 
to perfection ; brought me my "eau chaud" for shaving with the 
regularity of clock-work, and always had a wood fire going 
brightly in the fire-place of my room when I came home in the 
evening. The French fire-places invariably had a plate or blower 
that could be pushed up out of sight or let down any desired dis- 
tance to regulate the draft ; but, like all fire-places, they were more 
wasteful of heat than a stove, and considering the scarcity of fuel 
2nd the frugality of the people, it is to be wondered that such a 
primitive and wasteful device was so popular. I can account for 
it only on the theory that it is impossible for them to get out of 
any rut their forefathers traveled in, just as it is impossible to 
break an Englishman of his habit of diving head first into his 
shirt, instead of putting it on American style, like a coat. The 
madame lived, cooked, and ate all in the same room, and she slept 
in a little alcove just big enough for a bed curtained off in one cor- 
ner. As a result of insufficient ventilation, she was subject to 
colds, and when she had one she imagined everybody else similarly 
afflicted. She drank copiously at such times of a hot herb tea 
that she brewed, and brought in bowls of it to me to drink as a 
precaution. I suppose, as I was remarkably free from colds over 
there. Altogether, they took the best of care of me ; looked after 
my laundry and mending, and were so exceedingly generous and 
kind that I shall always remember them as real friends. 

About this time I was flattered beyond measure by receiving 
notice from the enlisted men of Company F, Three Hundred and 
Ninth Engineers, that they were arranging to publish a history < 1 
the company and wanted the contribution of a story, poem, or 
anything from me, whom they still cherished as one of their offi- 
cers. Of course I did my best, and sent it to Corporal Phillips 
chairman of their publication committee. In due course, I re- 
ceived the following acknowledgment which made me smile with 
tears in my eyes at the military third-person style of its kindh 

34i 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

sentiments. Those boys will always have a warm spot in my 
heart. 

"Received the lieutenant's contribution for Company F history 
pbout a week ago, and wish to thank the lieutenant very much. 
We can hardly express our appreciation for the co-operation the 
lieutenant has given us in sending the poems and sketch. Cer- 
tainly what we wanted but weren't able to get our ideas linked 
together. 

"I read the poems to the company in the mess hall the same 
day I received them, and then the letter. I only wish the lieu- 
tenant could have been somewhere nearby, and I feel sure that the 
heutenant would not regret spending his entire time, for life, on 
such work. 

"This may seem worded a little strong, nevertheless it is true. 
One can hardly imagine how attached a body of men become to 
£.n officer who is fair to them while in the army and away from 
home." 

One of my contributions, an illustrated memorial to "Our 
Comrades of Germain," whom we buried there, is reproduced 
elsewhere in these pages*, and the other was the following attempt 
to be humorous over the hard luck of our organization in that it 
was trained to exhaustion in the states and only got to France 
after the war was over : 

S. O. L. 
(Sure Out of Luck.) 
When Woodrow said it was a sin 
To let the Central Powers win. 
His drag-net caught us in the draft — 
For many moons we have not laughed. 
Not that we were afraid to fight 
But that he overtrained us, quite. 
"Squads East and West" with all their frills, 
And rigid engineering drills, 
Were forced on us as we were told, 
To make us fit ; but we were sold, 
Because raw men who never shot 
A rifle, came while we were not 
Allowed to shed our khaki pants, 
And sail away to sunless France 
In time to get a single lick 
In on the Boche with gun or pick. 

*See page 172. 

342 



AN AUTOMOBILE TRIP TO PARIS AND LE MANS 

No desp'rate deeds mark our advance 

Because we never had a chance ! 

No medals bright nor gay fourragere 

Hang on our breasts or anywhere 

About these clothes that we are made 

To keep so spotless for parade. 

It gives our pride an ugly cut 

To see those newer fellows strut 

With wound and service stripes galore, 

When it was luck — and nothing more — 

As fickle as a summer's breeze 

That took them early overseas. 

One consolation we can claim — 

We are not dead, nor gassed, nor lame — 

For with such luck as ours to date 

All casualties had been our fate, 

Had we along the front been lined 

Before the Armistice was sigfned. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 

A PROMOTION AND AN EVENING OUT 

The book was so nearly done by the middle of April, that 
Colonel Fulmer allowed other officers of G. 5, to take part of our 
time, and I was making illustrations of aerial movements for 
Colonel Hohl, battalion and regimental operations for Colonel 
Lynch, and medical charts and diagrams for Colonel Shockley. 
Colonels McNabb and Fulmer left for Le Mans to make final ar- 
rangements there for the shooting tournament, and I went with 
them, — nearly three hundred miles by automobile via Paris and 
historic France — and after a day at Le Mans, of interest to Amer- 
icans as the place where Wilbur Wright taught Europe to fly in 
1908, I returned alone by steam-cars and spent several days at 
sightseeing in Paris. 

343 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 




I had written home for kid glove sizes, and preferred colors, 

for all of my fe- 
rn a 1 e relatives 
that I might take 
them souvenirs 
from the great 
glove factory of 
Chaumont, and a 
letter was await- 
ing me giving all 
the information 
asked for except- 
ing as to my sis- 
ter Kate. The omission annoyed me because Kate was the 
youngest of our family and the only sister, and I didn't want to 
disappoint her. But another letter came from her husband ; the 
rest had left it to him to tell me that Kate was dead ; that she had 
died of the "flu" three months before. Such shocks are hard to 
bear alone. She so much younger, with everything to live for and 
thus to be taken ! 

That recommendation for a captaincy was returned disap- 
proved for the reason that no promotions would now be made ex- 
cept to fill a specific vacancy. General Fiske and his secretary, 
Colonel Wilson, next took the matter in hand ; they found a va- 
cancy and renewed the recommendation. 

Every soldier in France was required to wear a couple of metal 
plates bearing his nam5, rank, and organization, tied around his 
neck like a dog check ; an officer of the grade of captain and under 
must also carry a small record book, giving his- military history, 
with remarks by his commanding officer, and he must have with 
him an identification card bearing his photograph and signature 
properly certified. Colonel Wilson as G. 5 executive officer, made 
the following endorsement in my Officer's Record Book : 
"G. 5, G. H. O., A. E. F., April 27, 1919. 

"Because of his unusual ability in landscape sketching and 
free-hand drawing this officer was sent, immediately upon arrival 
in the A. E. F., to the Army Schools as an instructor. While 
there he rendered excellent service. Because of his special ability 
he was sent to the front several times, and made a large number 
of sketches and drawings of great military value and excellence. 
"Upon the closing of the Army Schools this officer was 
brought to this section to assist in the preparation of musketry 

344 



PROMOTED TO RANK OF CAPTAIN OF ENGINEERS 



and other manuals embodying- some of the lessons learned in this 
war. His work of illustrating' these manuals is excellent and his 
treatment of his subjects displays a military knowledge unusual 
in an officer of his short length of service. 

"He has been several times recommended for promotion to the 
grade of captain, and his promotion is now under consideration. 

"WM. H. WILSON, 
(Official Stamp) "Colonel General Staff, 

Executive Officer." 

On May 2, 1920, I was promoted to the rank of Captain of 
Engineers, G. H. Q., medically examined and sworn in. 

That night I was the guest of honor at General Fiske's mess. 
There I was seated between two generals, with colonels and lieu- 
tenant colonels of decreasing rank on each side of them. Strange 
to say, they were just as human, jolly, and companionable as 
ordinary soldiers. I think they must have taken their dignity 
and rank off with their trench coats (all self-respecting officers 
wore trench coats in France) and overshoes for they were like a 
lot of boys together, and after the meal tossed pennies to see who 
would pay for the wine that all had been served with. 

Then we adjourned across the hall to a lounging and smok- 
ing room, Where everybody had to tell a story. 

I had been flying with Colonel Hohl, as had most of the 
officers present, and he was known to be a fearless and almost 
reckless aviator. 

"Could you always find a good field and rise against tbe 
wind during the war, Colonel ?" somebody asked him. 

"Oh, we tried, but I remember once I didn't have the right 
conditions. I was flying low over a Bosch line when a chance 
shot from them crippled my control-gear, and when the earth 
seemed to swing up by the side of me and I had to look up next 
to see it, I knew I must right myself quickly and land to fix the 
gear. I got down on a level spot on top of a hill and was nearly 
ready to go up again when the bullets began to spit and buzz 
around, and I saw the Jerry's coming. My only chance was in 
the opposite direction, regardless of the wind. I commenced to 
hit the high places when one of my ground-wheels collapsed, 
and the plane took a dive to the right into the top of a tree, 
growing some distance below in a steep drop of the hill. I 
' thought that tree-top was my finish ; but slid out of its branches 
and continued in a low glide across the valley that gave me a 
chance to get the control again and head against the wind. 

345 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Soon I was all right, but it was a mighty close call." 

"McNabb ought to be here to tell us how he checkmated the 
sharpers who tried to swindle his Indian squaw out of her oil- 
land. I noticed by a Herald item she has just come into a few 
millions, and Sandy should have a handsome commission com- 
ing," one of McNabb's many admirers remarked : "What have 
you to offer here tonight, Shockley?" 

"Well," replied Colonel Shockley, "the presence of Captain 
Minturn reminds me of the health-charts that he has been mak- 
ing under my direction. 

"You see the army now in Germany has been wanting to go 
home and the men have been fooling the medical staff into the 
belief that on account of their hard service before the armistice, 
and consequent run-down condition, they are not able to stand 
the Rhine climate. These charts we've been working out from 
the sick reports of all troops in the A. E. F. for the past four 
months show that that army is actually the healthiest of our or- 
ganizations now overseas. It's wonderful what comparisons 
can be made with a few crooked lines on a chart, — absolutely 
reliable because the organizations can't go back on their own 
sick-reports that they have been furnishing us at headquarters 
for months before this came up." 

So I had unwittingly been helping to keep a whole army of 
homesick soldiers from going home ! 

"Just had a taste of my own medicine," Colonel Wilson volun- 
teered. "As one of the general staff executive officers I've been 
issuing orders to the rest of the army and have been going around 
to see that they were enforced without much regard to the re- 
quirement of travel orders to check the sight-seeing craze of our 
officers and men here in Europe. Last week the guard refused to 
let me leave Bar-le-Duc without proper papers. "I don't need 
any," I expostulated. "Can't you tell my rank and that I'm a gen- 
eral staff officer from my insignia?" "Yes, sir," he replied, "but 
my orders don't excuse anybody." Then I got mad and tried to 
pass anyway. He called his corporal and the corporal sided with 
him ; said I must get orders from his Colonel before 1 could leave." 

"You did that, of course," somebody who knew his fiery dis- 
position suggested. "Of course I did not. I gave them both to 
understand that I ranked their Colonel and wasn't taking orders 
from a subordinate and warned them against further interference 

346 



SOME AFTER DINNER STORIES 




"GLAD TO MEET YOU, PRINCE!" GENERAL, FISKE 
INTRODUCING LT. MINTURN TO THE PRINCE OF 
WALES AT CHAUMONT, FEB. 16, 1919- See Page 325. 



with an officer in his line of duty and I left them staring at each 
other and came on home." 

I was called on to repeat the story of how I succeeded in get- 
ting into the army, and briefly related the manner in which I had 
been discharged at Harrison for over-age ; how I went to Wash- 
ington and saw the adjutant-general, the vice-president of the 
United States, 
and the secre- 
tary of war, and 
was reinstated 
and finally 
transferred to 
(the Engineers 
and just now 
promoted. 

"You have 
earned your 
spurs, Captain," 
Colonel Wilson 
declared, to which they all agreed, and as they were regular army 
men, with one exception beside myself, and had relaxed from the 
"iron rigid discipline" which I had previously supposed impossi- 
ble, I reversed my judgment that evening in a manner quite favor- 
favorable to West Point and its graduates. 

The other exception was First Lieutenant Blain, who man- 
aged G. 5 library with fine diplomacy. He was a member of the 
Staff Mess and that he could hob-nob with generals and colonels 
so constantly as he did without being spoiled speaks volumes for 
his mental poise and good sense. He was custodian of the tons 
of bulletins and manuals used in training our overseas army and 
was responsible for the proper delivery of this literature all over 
France and to the Army of Occupation in Germany by truck, au- 
tomobile, and side-car. The G. 5 library carried a large and 
varied assortment of books, and what it didn't have Lieutenant 
Blain would go to Paris and get. He was in Paris so often that 
he kept a billet there as well as at Chaumont. He early declared 
against the League of Nations, and Captain Poorman, of the 
Engineers' mess, was as vehemently in favor of it. 

"We are false to the principles that took us into this war ; 
false to our Allies and to the world, and we shall lose all we 
have been fighting for if we don't join the League of Nations. 

347 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

The American colonies had the same baseless fear of a union of 
states, but the union proved our salvation," the captain said. 

"We sacrifice our national independence, the traditions of 
the founders of our Government and chance for usefulness in 
the future if we do ! The American colonies were all English, 
they had common interests that had brought them together for 
a century ; they were not plotting and envious like the Old World 
is ; Europe will hang to us like leeches, or use us as a cat's paw," 
replied the lieutenant, and very early in a controversy that has 
spread to the United States and become a political issue, I had 
to declare for the League of the Treaty with reservations, in 
order to keep my friends. 



CHAPTER XXXIX 

DOMREMY, THE BIRTHPLACE OF JOAN OF ARC 

I passed through Domremv on my way to and from Germany 
and had been within a few hours' ride of the place for several 
months ; so I felt it would not do to quit France without a close- 
up view of the home and country of the maid whose inspiration 
gave France her superb valor at Verdun, whose voice called the 
American soldier to later victory, and who represented the soul 
and achievement of the French people whose love of liberty has 
enlightened other nations and taught us so much. 

Before my trip to Le Mans with Colonel Fulmer I asked him 
for leave to visit Domremv. 

"How long will you be away?" he questioned. 

"A couple of days, perhaps." 

"Why don't you get on the train and go? You don't need a 
travel order," he said. 

"How will I get past the guards at the railway station?" 

"Just as you've been doing, — you don't seem to have trouble." 

"Very well, Sir, I take it the colonel authorizes me to go. I'll 
start in the morning. If arrested, I'll send for the Colonel." 

Wearing my barracks cap, which has no insignia of rank, 
and trench coat from which my bars were discretely removed, I 
approached the militarv police at the Chaumont station early 

348 






AT NEUFCHATEAU 

next morning". He was studying me closely to determine if I 
were an antiquated field-clerk, a Y. M. C. A. manager, or a gen- 
eral who had carelessly forgotten his stars, when I gave him my 
severest "Why don't you salute?" look. Then he knew for a 
certainty that I was a general, and up came his hand in a salute 
which I returned, and passed on about my business. 

Domremy is off the railroad several miles. Between Chau- 
mont and Neufchatean where I left the train, the switches and 
sidings along the way were full of freight-cars, and they were 
filled with American soldiers crowding the side doors with the 
legs of those sitting on the sills hanging down outside, and with 
the opening above and the one little window on each side full of 
glad faces. It was the Thirty-second division on their way from 
Germany to the seaboard ; glad and hilarious because they were 
going home. Arthur Minturn, my brother Sam's boy, belonged 
with the Thirty-second, and was among them somewhere, but 
impossible for me to find in that congestion of trains and men. 

At Neufchateau, where there is a public square named after* 
the heroine who often visited there, I was directed to the army 
transportation office out at the edge of town. A sergeant was 
in charge while his superior officer was at dinner, but he could 
be gotten by phone. At my direction he called up with the infor- 
mation that a "general headquarters officer is here, and wants 
a car to take him to Domremy," — and the word came back to 
take him out in the best they had. So a few minutes later a 
genial driver whom his companions called "Tex" had me in an 
automobile on the rest of the twelve miles to Domremy. Tex, 
like most of our young soldiers, had picked up a fair smattering 
of French. It was useful when we arrived, in locating a sleep- 
ing place. We canvassed the score of houses comprising the vil- 
lage in less than a half-hour. 

The old Roman road from Langres to Verdun crosses the 
river Meuse and divides at once in a curve in front of the Arc 
homestead into one main street of the town, the north end of 
which, to make the most out of little, is called Rue Grande, while 
the south end is called by a name which translated means Mill 
street. Perhaps there is an acre of ground enclosed with the 
cottage by a high iron fence in front and a stone wall the rest of 
the way, and through this yard the famous brook of the Three 
Fountains that divided the territory of Champagne from that of 

349 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



Lorraine, takes its course. So, small as the town is and smaller 
the yard, they are also made to go as far as possible by being 
divided between two provinces. 




THE CHURCH AT DOMRE.MY WHERE JOAN-OF-ARC WORSHIPPED. 

TO THE LEFT OF THE CHURCH. IN THE FENCED INCLOSURE. IS HER 

BIRTHPLACE, AND IN THE DISTANCE IS THE MEMORIAL CHURCH 

WHERE THE MAID COMMUNED WITH THE "VOICES" 

Across a narrow way now called "Passage Jeanne" is the 
church which one enters over the very slabs of stone on which 
Joan kneeled to pray that France be delivered from her invaders. 

Two buildings up Grand street bore hotel signs, but the 
places were not functioning as such, and with Tex to do the talk- 
ing for me we looked further. As a last hope we were referred 
to the village schoolmaster, who offered me a bed over a stable. 
That was no particular distinction though, for most of the dwell- 
ings were stable annexes, and the only way by which I could 
identify my boarding house was by counting the manure piles. 
Mine was across the way at the seventh pile from the church on 
Grand street. 

Many French and American soldiers, nurses, signal service 
and Y. M. C. A. girls were among the pilgrims who made hasty 
stops during the parts of the two days that I remained in Dom- 
remy. I followed them out Mill street and far away to the 
memorial church, built on the site of a hermitage and small 
chapel to which the maid would steal to commune with the 
"voices" and pray to her three saints while her little mates were 
playing under the tree of the fairies near by. 

I bought souvenirs in the loggia of the basilique from the 
smiling priest, admired the bronze figures of the paternal and 

350 



JOAN-OF-ARC BASILIQUE 

maternal Arcs that guard the portals of this sublime memorial to 
their sainted daughter, and admired Lorin's mural masterpieces 
telling the story of Joan's life, with which the interior walls are 
decorated ; was turned back from climbing the tower by a door 
that was locked, gazed upon the carved figures of Joan and her 
angels, and then settled down at some distance across the road 
to make a pen sketch of the structure. This proceeded slowly on 
account of the wealth of architectual detail, and my lingering 
must have made the good fathers in charge a bit nervous. They 
looked across at me and talked among themselves as one con- 
veyance full after another of sightseers came and departed while 
I stayed on. Perhaps they feared I had sinister designs on their 
church, but instead of coming directly to see about it, one of the 
reverend fathers began pacing the gravel walk with an open 
book held as though he were deeply engaged in memorizing its 
pages. But at each turn he came closer, and finally circled 
around so he could look over my shoulder. Then I held my 
drawing for him to see. "Ah, tres bein !" he politely exclaimed, 
and apparently satisfied that I was not planting a mine to blow 
up the sacred edifice directly returned to the church and 
disappeared. 

The way back was down the same long hill past the tree of 
the fairies, the tree of the dames, and the charm tree of the 
fairy of Bourlemont, and in spite of the fact that trees do not 
live forever and it has been nearly five hundred years since 
Joan-of-Arc played under them, those, said to be the identical 
ones, are pointed out now to the visitor. But their legends are 
ever fresh and the same magnificent view of the wide meadows 
bordering the winding Meuse, the Vosges hills, and the red- 
roofed villages that Joan saw, are there today with perhaps little 
or no change. 

The next problem was to get something to eat as the sun's 
last rays shone over the cow-sheds of Domremy. I took out 
my "French for Fighters" that has an excellent assortment of 
English-French sentences, and after practicing a few times until 
1 could repeat it, made this demand on the landlady of one of the 
buildings labeled "Hotel:" 

"Veuillez me donner quelque chose a manger, s'il vous plait," 
which in English was "Please give me something to eat." I 
suppose she thought I wanted a Delmonico spread or something 

351 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

for nothing and refused me, and from experience I insisted with- 
out my guide book : 

"S'il vous plait, Madame, un sandwich au jambon, sardines, 
oeuf s, foumage, pain — quelque choose ! combein ?" 

"Wee, wee," she promptly answered, and seating me at an 
oil-cloth covered table, I watched her open a small box of sar- 
dines and get together a fair meal for which she presented a bill 
that I have preserved and copy as follows : 

Sardine et beurre 3.75 

Vin 2.10 

3 oeuf s 2.25 

foumage 50 

pain 50 

service 50 

9.60 

The Instituteur's (village schoolmaster's) wife was large, 
plump and motherly. She demanded if I had had supper, where 
I got it, and what it was, and when I showed her my itemized 
bill she was indignant. Why didn't I come home to eat? No 
soup, no salad, no vegetables, and no meat except sardines and 
oeufs. It was "poof" on all I got — and for nine francs and sixty 
centimes ! She would get me something more — I must be 
starved ! It was with great difficulty that I convinced her and 
her husband that I wanted nothing more — then. 

I spent an enjoyable evening with them; the good wife pro- 
ducing a bottle of clear yellow liquor, a "distilasiong de prueno," 
she called it with a kick like its half-brother, the American "white 
mule." She was "abstinang" herself, but the little gray-whis- 
kered schoolmaster helped me to a thimbleful and kept me com- 
pany. They both knew as much English as I did French — the 
husband more ; but they were educated people and a surprisingly 
large number of words in both languages have a like meaning, 
and enough similarity in pronunciation to be recognized when 
enunciated distinctly and slowly. My host said it was because 
of their common Latin origin that so many words were alike. 

My hostess wanted to know if I was "marie," and then 
"combein les enfants?" and when she learned that I was a 
"granpear" and had five grandchildren she hunted up some 

352 



TALK WITH THE SCHOOLMASTER OF DOMREMY 



Joan-of-Arc souvenirs for them. She was interested in the 
various trinkets that I had bought from the priest at the basilique ; 
shook her head at the prices Americans would pay ; then tied 
them all up in a better package for me. 

Mine host asked me during the evening what I candidly 
thought of Joan-of-Arc as a character, and without knowing if 
he could understand me I replied that there were a great many 
patients today in our insane asylums who saw visions and heard 
voices that called them to do extravagant things, and if Joan 
lived in our age, instead of making her a saint, the authorities 
would hold a sanity inquest and send her to an insane asylum. 
He understood what I said very well and replied that I must 
judge her by the age in which she lived — that he had studied her 
character from every angle and had come to the conclusion that 
she was an exceptional character and would have been so re- 
garded in any age. 

I thought of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, General Booth, Alexan- 
der Dowie, Pastor Rus- 
sell, Joe Smith, and 
others of no very an- 
cient period whom 
some would have sent 
to a lunatic asylum, and 
was curious to get his 
slant on the character 
of Joan-of-Arc. By 
hard work and perse- 
verance this, in sub- 
stance, is what he told 
me: 

During the childhood 
of Joan the English, by 
an alliance with Philip 

of Burgundy — he who had the palace at Dijon now used as an art 
gallery which I saw on my trip to Nice — had extended their con- 
quest over the whole of north France ; Isabella, the Dauphin's 
mother, had disinherited her son in favor of her son-in-law, 
Henry V. of England. The prophet, Merlin, had long before 
said that calamities would fall on France through the depravity 
of a woman, and would be removed by the efforts of a chaste 
virgin ; and the tradition was that the virgin would come out 

353 




A SORREL COLT LOOKED INTO MY ROOM AT 

DOMREMY FROM THE TOP OP A PILE OF 

FERTILIZER 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

of the forests of Domremy, where Joan tended her father's 
sheep. The people of that day were more war-torn and 
harassed than they now are, because the different provinces of 
France, then independent sovereignties, were constantly at war 
with each other. The people of Domremy had often to flee to 
the hills or to the larger towns for refuge, and only five or six 
miles away was a Burgundian town with whose inhabitants the 
people of Domremy, as followers of the Count d'Armagnac, 
fought every time they met. Joan heard stories of war at the 
family fire-side and* saw her brothers come home bloody and 
torn from encounters with the villagers of Marey. Too, it was 
no uncommon thing for women to go to war with their lovers 
and husbands as pages and esquires, and the masses then were 
more prone to believe in prophecy and omen than they perhaps 
are today ; although they are not yet entirely free from the influ- 
ence of the strange and the supernatural. 

Joan never learned to read or write. Her mother was a de- 
\out Catholic who had gone on a pilgrimage to Rome and was 
more or less religiously fanatical. She taught her daughter to 
recite the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, and the Credo. Joan 
was temperamentally inclined to be deeply impressed with love 
of church, country and home. She was noted for her abound- 
ing physical energy ; but her vivacity was not coarse or unfem- 
mine, ft was the result of intense natural activity, imagination, 
and an abnormally sensitive nervous temperament. She was 
unselfishly kind to every living person and creature. She was 
the village favorite easily excelling in household work and skill 
with the needle, and she was so much annoyed by the young men 
of her acquaintance that she had to resort to the authorities in 
at least one recorded instance, to free her from the attentions of 
a determined suitor. 

She knew she was different from all of her associates — so 
keen and sensitive that she lived intensely what others heard 
with inattention and soon forgot. 

It was easy and natural, under all of the conditions, that she 
should sympathize with the unfortunate Dauphin, and in her 
intense patriotism wish that she might do something to help him. 

Her mind turned to the prophecy of Merlin, and to the tra- 
dition that the savior of France was to be a virgin from Dom- 
remy. Of her prayers, of the answering voices, of her persever- 

354 



THE VILLAGE OF DOMREMY 

ance under many rebuffs, of her actual achievements and tragic 
end, all the world now know. 

"After five hundred years she stands as the embodiment of 
liberty ; the personification of an ideal which Frenchmen of all 
classes see as a beautiful, fine, young woman — pure, aloof, in- 
vincibly strong — the incarnation of a la belle France." 

It was impressive in that plain, low-ceilinged cottage of 
Joan's native Domremy, to witness the exaltation of the village 
schoolmaster, and to listen to this closing inspiration in his 
broken English. 

I awoke the next morning in the presence of the unusual — 
real sun rays streaming" in through holes in the closed wooden 
window-blinds, and as I hastened to let its full light in before 
the gathering canopy of clouds hid it for the day I beheld another 
novelty across the street. It was the finest sorrel colt, nearly a 
year old, surveying his world from the top of a huge pile of fer- 
tilizer, and he looked at me and into my room in a quizzically 
friendly way that almost said he would like to come over and 
play awhile. 

I breakfasted with my hosts and said good-by with regret 
and a realization that the finest people do not always live in the 
finest houses. 

The little village seemed vastly more interesting today. I 
sketched the homestead with the church to the right and the 
basilique on the other side on the far distant ridge ; then walked 
back through Passage Jeanne, which crosses a part of the orig- 
inal garden, of which the historian relates : 

"One day, in 1423, in the summer and on a fast-day, the young 
girl was in the garden near the church at midday when she sud- 
denly saw a great light, and from the midst of this light heard a 
voice saying : 'Joan, good and wise child, go often to church !' 
On another occasion she saw in this light beautiful figures, one 
of whom was winged, said to her : 'Joan, go and deliver the 
King of France and restore the kingdom to him !' She trembled 
greatly and answered, 'Sir, I am but a poor maid ; I know not 
how to lead men-at-arms.' The voice replied : 'St. Catherine 
and St. Margaret will assist you.' She saw again the archangel 
and the two saints and heard the voices ; she heard them for four 
years, then it was time to obey them." 

355 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Passage Jeanne leads into an alley-like thoroughfare half oc- 
cupied by the brook of the Three Fountains, which washes the 
foundation of a stone wall topped with sloping red tile that 




-Gcsr/rr/or- 



JOAN-OF-ARC'S BIRTHPLACE (MIDDLE BUILDING WITH THE SHED- 

ROOF) AS SEEN FROM THE REAR. THE DUCKS ARK SWIMMING IN 

THE BROOK OF THE THREE FOUNTAINS 

defines that side of the old garden. The brook dives under a 
culvert at the corner and then goes under the wall of the Arc 
homestead and flows through the yard by the old house. A row 
of stable-yards drain into the brook before it reaches the culvert, 
and ducks were paddling opposite a hole in the old garden wall 
provided with steps to the water's edge, down which a woman 
came and dipped a bucket of water from the brook. 

Then I sat on a bench under one of the great pine trees and 
sketched in water-colors the house in which the maid was born. 
Sightseers, showers of rain, and venders of souvenirs came often 
to bother me. One little girl of about the age of Joan when she 
first saw the vision in the garden, was particularly interested, 
and my imagination easily pictured her as the original maid. 
She was of "a strong body but an anxious mind," as Joan's con- 
temporaries said of her, and most too "simple, sweet and timid" 
tor a good salesgirl. She could talk a delightful mixture of 
French and English but told a sad story of the loss of "fazzer," 
"muzzer," and "bruzzer" in the war. She had drifted here and 
taken employment offering souvenirs for sale to tourists for 
some people of Domremy. 



356 



CONCENTRATION CAMP AT ST. AIGNAN 



CHAPTER XL 



HOMEWARD BOUND 



Early in May the order came starting me toward home. It 
only took me as far as the concentration camp at St. Aignan, 
twenty-five miles east of Tours. Tours, Chaumont, and Lan- 
gres, as stated elsewhere, are the three cities of chief interest to 
Americans overseas. Tours, because it was the headquarters of 
our service of supply. St. Aignan is between fifty and sixty 
miles south-by-west from Orleans, made famous by Joan-of-Arc, 
and about 130 miles in the same direction from Paris. There I 
remained a week as a casual with nothing to do but fret and 
"crab" and wait, like thousands of others, for orders to a sea- 
board camp where I would be required to wait some more for 
orders to embark. 

At St. Aignan newly commissioned second lieutenants dec- 
orated with brand new gold-washed bars swarmed like yellow 
butterflies in fall time; thousands of them, who had graduated 
after the armistice from the last officers' training-camps, and 
would never have any harder task now than to draw their pay 
and wait for orders home for honorable discharge. Among 
them were a dozen from the Three Hundred and Ninth En- 
gineers who were sent to school while the regiment was at 
St. Germain. 

I made the acquaintance of an old army chaplain, Major Tay- 
lor, who, when he learned that I was a Mason, found some way 
1o get me on the list for Marseille and homeward bound via 
Gibraltar, the very next day. 

At Camp Covington, in Marseille, Colonel E. B. Martindale, 
from Indianapolis, was in command and extended pass-privi- 
leges that enabled me to see more of the city and its historic 
neighborhood than I otherwise would, and at the end of a week 
a ship-load of us were ordered aboard the small Italian steamer, 
Argentina, of eight thousand tons, a confiscated Austrian ship, 

357 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 




AT GIBRALTAR. 

SKETCH 



now from Trieste, and began a three weeks voyage that took us 
past the Majorica Islands of the Spanish Mediterranean coast 

and into the 



harbor of Gib- 
raltar where we 
lay by two days 
to coal. 

We went 
sightseeing in 
their uncomfort- 
able two-seated 
cabs each drawn 
by a most delib- 
erate horse; 
watched the pa- 
rade of nations through the main street, where we also went shop- 
ping and were swindled in regulation tourists' style by the East 
Indian pirates who keep those holes-in-the-walls and ask three 
times what they accept rather than let one depart without buying. 
I made a sketch of houses in rows of steps up the giant rock to 
the old Moorish Castle and started another of the narrow main 
street crowded with curiously garbed men and loaded donkeys 
when a British guard said I must get a permit from the Governor 
or quit. I chose the latter as post cards of everything worth 
seeing were on sale. 

It developed on the Mediterranean part of our trip, that Ave 
away aboard in the person of I 'ere Goriot, a diminu- 
tive [2-year-old boy. who had been orphaned in Flanders in the 
early days of the war. and had been put out by the authorities to 
a fanner to rear who set him to herding goats. But Pere did 
not do well at that because he would blindfold them so they 
couldn't stray, leaving him free to bird-nest and play in the brook. 
Finally he ran away from agricultural life to. the armies, and, 
drifting into an American camp, was adopted as a mascot by a 
western regiment. A company tailor cut down a second-hand 
uniform for him, and at one time his dress had been a neat reg- 
ulation khaki, but when he was hauled out of the hold of our 
boat for inspection it was soiled and worn and his little terhinder 
shone through dog-eared tears in the seat of his diminutive pants. 
But this was the least of Pere's very limited assortment of cares. 
His greatest worry was that he had not been allowed to follow 

358 



A FRENCH BOY STOW AWAY 

his hero. Sergeant Bliss, of Chicago, on the transport that left 
Marseille ahead of us. He had initiative enough though to 
smuggle himself aboard the Argentina much to the present worry 
of the captain of the ship, who hadn't been able so far to lay his 
hands on the lad. This was because Pere had the sympathy and 
covert assistance of every American soldier on board, and the 
agility of a monkey to keep out of the way. He sprang past me 
as I was hurrying on board before the ship hauled her plank in 
al < ribraltar, just in time to miss the clutches of an officer, and 
was soon doing stunts in the rigging that nobody cared to follow. 

He was on board when we sailed out between the Pillars of 
1 Sercules and also when we passed the Azores, and in the latter 
neighborhood the transport carrying Sergeant Bliss was spoken 
to by wireless, but apparently the sergeant did not care to assume 
the responsibility of introducinig Pere to his own home and 
family. For while Pere could talk American, it was of a kind 
that needed much polishing and pruning before it would be ac- 
ceptable in polite society. 

That left Pere subject to adoption by somebody before we 
landed who would be responsible for his future. As a prelim- 
inary a collection was taken, and a purse of several hundred dol- 
lars was easily made up for him ; but nobody volunteered to take 
the boy until Dr. Barnes, ex-mayor of Barncsville. X. Y., said 
lie would be glad to take him to rear with his own two boys if 
nobody without children wanted him. 

"Any human being," the doctor declared, "who had the ini- 
tiative and intelligence that Pere had demonstrated was bound to 
succeed, and be a credit to those who befriended him." So Dr. 
Barnes got Pere and I am sure that Pere now has a good second 
father. 

I must make an honest confession before closing these pages. 
My early training had been by a religious, almost Puritanical 
mother, who accepted the divinity of the Bible and of Christ 
without a question ; but my acceptance had always been with 
mental reservations. 

The limited library on board the Argentina had a few pop- 
ular novels that the younger army officers aboard appropriated 
and passed to each other in a manner that prevented anybody 
not of their circle from getting them. That left such books as 
Josephus, a translation of Heroditus, Plato, Plutarch's lives and 

359 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 




FOR PEACE IS LOVE, OR, RATHER, IS THAT STATE MADE MANIFEST TO 
OUTWARD SENSE, BY LOVE.— WHERE INHUMANITY OF MAN TO MAN 
IS CHANGED BY LOVE TO FELLOWSHIP AND PEACE. AS EARTH HER 
•^X ER ~ PI ' ANI ' :TS - AN,) THE SUN TO'AKD HERCULES BY SLOW DEGREES 
ARE MOVED, SO. SLOW BUT EVER ONWARD TO THAT GOAL OF PE4.CE 
THE BROAD'NING THOUGHTS OF MEN ARE DRAWN. 

—THE RENAISSANCE OF PEACE, BY MINTURN. 
360 



KIDD'S SCIENCE OF POWER 



the like, which all know of by heresay, but few by personal con- 
tact, and I browsed among them until I came to a late book en- 
titled the "Science of Power," by Benjamin Kidd, that had been 
passed up on suspicion by the others. 

The writer argued that the influence of the ideal was greater 
than reason or any other force in the world ; that Darwin's theory 
of the survival of the fittest applied only to the individual, and 
not to the community or society ; that the doctrine of love and 
the principles of the Golden Rule first taught by Christ are 
directly antagonistic to Darwin's theory ; that the world through 
countless ages has developed on Darwin's theory, which means 
that A must kill B before B kills A ; and that we, because we 
are the descendants of 
A are here because we 
are the best fighters 
and have killed the de- 
scendants of B ; that 
this fighting instinct 
dominates the world 
and particularly the 
male part of it which 
lives only for self and 
the present ; that 



women who sacrifice 




themselves for their we were all rigidly inspected for 
uienibeive^ iui uicn .. VERMIN AND contagious disease- be- 

children and can vis- fore embarking at Marseille 

ualize the future are the only hope — men by their very nature can- 
not be counted on to grasp the essential ideal and work for the 
betterment of unborn generations. The teachings of Christ were 
accepted protestingly by Europe for centuries — they were a mis- 
fit — so opposed to the inborn fighting instincts of the dominating 
males of the human race that when Darwin, along in the fifties 
of the last century, announced his theory, it fitted into the male's 
conception of life, and for that reason spread with remarkable 
rapidity ; but nowhere so rapidly and so far as in Germany. The 
Germans assumed that, of all the world, they were the fittest 
and the World war was the logical outcome of the Darwinian 
theory as applied to a nation. 

I read this book over twice, and gave it to several officers of 
near my own age on board — mostly doctors — and we argued 
and discussed its principles until I soon found myself contending 

361 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



that the hope of the world was not the League of Nations, but 
the old-fashioned teachings of Christ, the Prince of Peace, who 
alone could change the hearts of men that their dreams of glory 
would not be to kill, but to do only good to their fellow-men. I 
found myself insisting that such a doctrine was divine and could 
only have been presented to a world like ours by one who was 
more than mortal; that the controlling American influence is an 
idealism which we even try to hide from ourselves, and that the 
German philosophy of Kultur which the world was disposed to 




, I TO OUR SURPRISE WE LANDED SAFEL iOKEN 

before the war and whic ed upon the Darwinian 

applied to society, has failed; while America with her 

jtic philosoph) grounded on the teachings of Christ, is left 

the most powerful nation on the globe; the one hereafter that 

successful nations must try to emulate. 

In one of the ship's library book, a facetious reader had in- 

! , "Property of the good ship, Argentina, otherwise known 

as the Ducking Broncho." A day or two after we passed Cadiz 

rtinency of this came home to us and continued to b 
tinent until we had passed the Azores and reached the gulf 
stream a few days out from New York. We held fast to the rail- 

362 



HONORABLY DISCHARGED JUNE 5, 1919 

ing to keep from being thrown into the sea ; the boat rolled and 
jumped and bucked so we couldn't read, and with no news by 
wireless and no ships that passed, we were reduced to the ex- 
tremity of betting for entertainment on the number of days the 
ship would be able to keep afloat. One of the enlisted men said 
be didn't know there was so much water in the world, and like 
the sailors with Columbus when he first made the trip, wanted to 
turn back. 

Much to our surprise we landed safely at Hoboken on the 
2d of June. I was ordered to report to the chief of engineers at 
Washington, D. C, for my discharge. There I was quartered on 
a cot in the attic of the old Blaine residence on Dupont Circle, 
a«id finally after several days of paper-work and orders to report 
here and there for this and that, I asked the last man before 
whom I had signed in a dozen places what I should do next. 

"Whatever you please," he answered. 

"Now, don't joke." I cautioned, "I want to get through with 
this and go home. It's serious with me." 

"Go on home if you want to." 

"Do you mean to say that I am out of the army?" 

"Yes." 

"That I can go where I please and do as I please without 
reporting to anybody or asking permission?" 

"Yes." 

"Well, I'll " and I walked out without remembering to 

salute or say good-by. 

That was the 5th of June, 1919, and I arrived in Indianapolis 
June 7 — just two years and twenty-six days from the time of 
entering the service. 

In all of this time I had not earned a congressional medal, a 
citation, nor any of the numerous foreign decorations. Para- 
phrasing the song of the engineers — 

"I tried to do my duty, and tried to do it well, 
But the captain and the sergeant and the corporal gave 
me !" 

I was gratified though to receive a letter from Colonel Ful- 
mer as chief of the Motor Transport corps, Washington, under 
date of May n, 1920, from which I extract the following: 

"Along last fall I made a trip through the southwest and 
363 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

upon my return was presented a sketch of old Fort Plesnoy. I 
at once knew the place and the author of such a splendid sketch. 

"I appreciate very much your sending me this drawing, Min- 
turn, and it might be of considerable interest and satisfaction to 
you to know that your drawings not only helped out the training 
of two million men in the A. E. F., but the pamphlet which was 
later adopted tentatively in this country is the only thing we have 
at present along these lines. 

"I have often wondered what became of our officers, and 
what they are doing and where they are. Frequently I hear 
from some, telling me of the work upon which they are engaged, 
and recalling many incidents of the strenuous period on the hill 
overlooking Plesnoy. 

"Let me hear from you and accept my deep appreciation for 
your efforts and your capable and loyal assistance." 

The End 



364 



